For someone as visible in the world as President Barack Obama, one could say, “There ain’t nothin’ about that dude, that we don’t already know.” But is that true? Is there something we haven’t seen or heard before about him? The new drama Barry (which is a nickname President Obama went by for folks who…
For the third time in recent history (with the same lead actor no less), director Peter Berg takes a contemporary event — U.S. troops in Afghanistan in “Lone Survivor,” an oil rig disaster in “Deepwater Horizon” and now with Patriots Day, the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing — brings it to the big screen and leaves…
“I am convinced there will be mutual understanding among human beings . . . in spite of all the suffering, the blood, the broken glass” — Pablo Neruda, Memoirs If the genre known as bio-pic has evolved into a predictable linear account of a well-known person’s life, Chilean director Pablo Larraín (“Jackie”) has turned the…
If attempting to make a film that might be considered edgy, make absolutely certain that it is an audacious work and not just an exercise in being insufferable.
Christianity came to Western Japan in 1542 by way of Jesuit missionaries from Portugal who brought gunpowder and religion. They were welcomed mostly for the weapons they brought and their religion was allowed to be practiced openly. Christianity was banned, however, after reports circulated of missionary intolerance towards the Shinto and Buddhist religions, and there…
While this J.A. Bayona (“The Impossible”) directed effort (based on a best-selling book by Patrick Ness), A Monster Calls, is a wonderful visual and visceral experience (and currently has critics fawning all over themselves), I, for one, can only wonder for whom this film was made. It’s certainly too dark and foreboding for children —…
Undoubtedly, Cannes produces a showcase selection of films considered artistic or valuable, but it also incurs the inevitable backlash. As such, being the winner of the Palme d’Or in the short film category, it’s impossible to respond to Timecode without fastidious scrutiny.
