Writing with Tea on Oranges is just about perfect for what it is, and what it is elevates it to something that can change you. Life is a matter of stories and also about reflection on self. So all true stories are in some way at...
With Ran, legendary director Akira Kurosawa reimagines Shakespeare's King Lear as a singular historical epic set in sixteenth-century Japan. Majestic in scope, the film is Kurosawa's late-life masterpiece, a profound examination of the folly of war and the crumbling of one family under the weight of betrayal, greed, and the insatiable thirst for power.
Noh Lear This is Noh Lear This is Noh Lear a wonderfully varied medium film can be! Here we have a film that is both truly great and in a different way a clumsy mistake. By now you know that this was made by a master...
Tormented and bedridden by a debilitating disease, a mystery writer relives his detective stories through his imagination and hallucinations.
Boundaries, Skin, Akroyd have been without a TeeVee for thirty years. It is a standing challenge to my friends to show me something that is produced for TeeVee that does less harm than good in working with the viewer's mind. I finally have it here. Lynch's...
Aging Major Palgrave, an idiosyncratic but charming mystery writer, reveals to Miss Jane Marple that one of the guests at a luxurious Caribbean resort they're staying at is a Bluebeard-type wife murderer. Unfortunately, the Major succumbs to an apparently accidental overdose of alcohol and blood pressure medication before revealing the killer's identity. When it's discovered that the medicine belonged to another guest and the revealing photograph the Major was carrying is missing, Miss Marple realizes that the serial killer has struck again and more murders will follow.
Glass Eye my mind, Christie’s novels are inherently cinematic. Most of them have key events: a murder or clue, that are spatially constrained, which is an attractive hook for a filmmaker. Here there are three such setups. A man tells a story about a known murderer,...
A disturbing psychological thriller based on the classic novel by Agatha Christie. Ten strangers are forced to come face to face with their dark pasts after receiving an anonymous invitation to an isolated island off the coast of England.
Invasive are not likely to find this easily. It is ‘Desyat negrityat’ in its original Russian (Десять негритят), being a comparatively faithful adaptation of an Agatha Christie mystery. Some context why this is interesting. The book is allegedly the largest selling fiction book in the...
In this luminous tale set in the former Yugoslavia, Perhan, an engaging young Romany with telekinetic powers, is seduced by the quick-cash world of petty crime that threatens to destroy him and those he loves. Long version screened by the Sarajevo television in 5 one-hour episodes.
Telekinetic Turkeys you see a film, write a comment and impressions get frozen. I revisit my comments from time to time and am often sad to see them. I remember films as a dynamic experience. The best ones are not a simple thing but an...
A fearless Secret Service agent will stop at nothing to bring down the counterfeiter who killed his partner.
Two Women a story that connects is a balancing act that rarely succeeds. You have to use the machinery of storytelling to engage, taking advantage of the power of the devices you select. But at the same time, you have to conceal that machinery. This...
Dickens on record here as someone who believes that TeeVee fiction is a net negative in our lives. The ugliness of the marketplace in general, the specific requirement to sell, sell, sell. The fickle commitment the home appliance brings are probably all more restricting than...
A hardened convict and a younger prisoner escape from a brutal prison in the middle of winter only to find themselves on an out-of-control train with a female railway worker while being pursued by the vengeful head of security.
Movement seen ‘Unstoppable,‘ I had to see this. It is hard to know what influence Kurosawa had on this, but one can guess. He had been through his rejection in Japan, suicide attempt and film made and financed by the Soviets. He subsequently arranged scant funding...
When a happily married family man, who would never consider an affair, meets a beautiful woman in red, he is totally infatuated and desperate to make her acquaintance. However, as he tries out various schemes to sneak out to meet her, he realizes that adultery is not quite as easy as it looks.
Different Favorite Color movies are good, most not. Of the ones that are not, they still can be fun. This project made money when it was new, but is now not only unengaging but repulsive. Why is actually engaging, because it just cannot be explained...
