A cinematographic adaptation of the dance performance by Ann Van den Broek.
Savage Worlds was just reminded of ‘Pina’ which I saw when new. And my partner has just acquired ‘Play’ (Alexander Ekman) so I am back thinking about film and dance. This follows a relatively recent period of brainstorming with a local dance company about how...
When her grandson is kidnapped during the Tour de France, Madame Souza and her beloved pooch Bruno team up with the Belleville Sisters—an aged song-and-dance team from the days of Fred Astaire—to rescue him.
Dream Stories see. How many stories are within this story. There's the show at the beginning which our heroine watches that gets transformed into her dream about the capture of the grandson she'll never have. When that show comes alive as reality, it gets mirrored back...
Two melancholic Hong Kong policemen fall in love: one with a mysterious underworld figure, the other with a beautiful and ethereal server at a late-night restaurant.
Discontinuous experiments in this film, and I took some trouble in sorting them out. The first thing you'll notice is the discontinuous camerawork, accentuated by low (never high) angles and strobeflashframes. This element by itself is sophomoric filmschoolism. Then you have the plot tags and storyline. The...
When cocky military lawyer Lt. Daniel Kaffee and his co-counsel, Lt. Cmdr. JoAnne Galloway, are assigned to a murder case, they uncover a hazing ritual that could implicate high-ranking officials such as shady Col. Nathan Jessep.
Rosencrantz and Guidenstern writing this in 2025 more than 30 years after seeing it, and probably 25 since writing the first IMDB comment, alas now deleted because of some complaint to IMDB. Watching it now, the whole context has changed. I know quite a few unbalanced...
The "bad boys of magic" go over the edge in this mind-blowing, role-switching comedy murder mystery set in the dizzying world of Atlantic City casinos. In a TV interview, Penn mentions his idea of a fun practical joke: "I wish someone were trying to kill me. It would give focus to my life, excitement. I'd be like James Bond." Twenty million people hear him. One decides to deliver a punchline he'll never forget. Made by people who thought Psycho was a comedy, Penn & Teller Get Killed (they also wrote the piece) features Caitlin Clarke as the femme fatale and David Patrick Kelly as the Edgar Allan Poe-esque nutcase with a new mission. Arthur Penn, known for hip masterpieces like Bonnie and Clyde, Alice's Restaurant and Little Big Man, directs with roller-coaster pacing and subversive intelligence.
Genuine is an absolutely unwatchable film, featuring two by then seasoned performers and directed by one of our greatest filmmakers. The basic idea is that the two magicians play tricks on each other, and toward the end you aren’t sure when dangerous things are genuine or...
After the previous Godzilla attack, a miniature arms race ensues to collect his cells. Concerned over Godzilla's possible return, the Japanese government uses the cells to create a new bio-weapon, ANEB (Anti-Nuclear Energy Bacteria). They seeks the aid of geneticist Genshiro Shiragami, who's experiments result in a new mutation.
Sexual Spies Godzilla films — the Japanese ones — are essentially social commentary and painful self-reflection embodied in beasts. So we have films about American dominance, gangsters in corporations, pollution, national friendships… This is the most complex one. The core story is a genius scientist creating...
In this humorous paean to the joys of food, a pair of truck drivers happen onto a decrepit roadside shop selling ramen noodles. The widowed owner, Tampopo, begs them to help her turn her establishment into a paragon of the "art of noodle-soup making". Interspersed are satirical vignettes about the importance of food to different aspects of human life.
New New Wave about other movies both fascinate and challenge me. The French "new wave" consisted of three types of ideas. They had notions about explicitly acknowledging the camera. That's such an ordinary notion these days that it is impossible to appreciate. And in any...
Disciplined Italian composer Antonio Salieri becomes consumed by jealousy and resentment towards the hedonistic and remarkably talented young Viennese composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Ratty Accident of God things just come together for no apparent reason. And when they do, they are either of the Mozart type or Salieri types. Here's how to tell in films: no chances are taken -- no experiments are made -- everything is extremely...
When Dr. Indiana Jones – the tweed-suited professor who just happens to be a celebrated archaeologist – is hired by the government to locate the legendary Ark of the Covenant, he finds himself up against the entire Nazi regime.
Masculinity Fades in my several thousand comments, a contemporary comment is missing for this popular movie. I’ve seen this now again after more than 40 years. It has not aged well. In its time, it was a phenomenon, created by the two biggest filmmakers in...
Two lifelong best friends spend a weekend at a secluded cabin. Through intimate conversations and silent moments, they explore their deep understanding of each other's personalities and desires.
In the Story makes their own decision on when the narrative intrusion is morally clean. Assuming that the film is about some emotional event among people, the question is if are we viewing to add to our soul, aor are we viewing to take something...