“We are not lost, we are just finding our way” — Stephen Meek, “Meek’s Cutoff” As depicted in “Wendy and Lucy” and “Meek’s Cutoff,” Kelly Reichardt’s characters are lost without a significant guidepost to hold on to, adrift in a society in which they struggle to fit in. Based on short stories from the 2009…
Time to head to port. Now. With its “final adventure” tag, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales glows with a compelling enough reason to re-rendezvous with Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp, “Alice Through the Looking Glass”), omitting how it will reward attendance with hollowed-out booty. Though ridding the stifled scope and static…
In The Shepherd, we meet Anselmo (Miguel Martín, “Cell 211”) on a day much like any other in his modest, repetitive life. He wakes up in his one-room farmhouse. He feeds his precious dog Pillo, he has breakfast, he showers. He spends the day with his sheep, reading and skimming stones when time permits. He…
From its opening shots of a city by night to its final image of a teenage boy entering an apartment block, La Granja (English title: “The Farm”) declares its interconnectivity and sociological credentials for all to see. Set in the Barrio La Esperanza area of Puerto Rico, writer-director Angel Manuel Soto’s film presents three narrative…
London. One of the nerve centers of world government. Home of the Houses of Parliament, St Paul’s Cathedral and Buckingham Palace. Home of black cabs and the Tube. Home to a thousand nationalities and one of the most cosmopolitan metropolises in the world. Home of the elastic ruler, the clockwork lamppost and the inflatable knitting…
I’m spending more time than I should trying to guess if the many vagina jokes in Amy Schumer’s sophomore effort are the reason for its title, Snatched, or not. I’m leaning towards a “yes” because using a double entendre is clever, lots of vagina jokes are funny — at least that’s what Ms. Schumer wants…
The dreadful The Shadow Effect, equal parts 80s action movie and 90s conspiracy thriller, is one of those movies that starts out puzzling and ends up incomprehensible. Overplotted and overacted, the movie is as subtle as a heart attack in a public library. It’s not, however, weighed down by such niceties as nuance and cleverness,…
