Crimson Peak is one of the most beautifully crafted visual experiences I’ve had in a movie theater in a while. Guillermo del Toro certainly knows how to put together beautiful imagery, whether it’s a fantasy masterpiece like “Pan’s Labyrinth” or a comic book adaptation like “Hellboy.” His movies are amazing to just *look* at, and…
Jacques Audiard has previously explored his primary cinematic interests by telling a tale of crime as a way of life and a tale of an unlikely family as a means of redemption. Now he’s combined the two in his latest movie, where he examines the intersection of these dramatically rich topics with carefully complex attention….
It’s nice to see a film version of an historical incident that that this author had no idea about. As a student of history, I’ve always prided myself on knowing as much as I could on as many subjects in this category as possible; and, like “Argo” (which also featured a classified backdrop) I found…
He Never Died was recently shown as part of the Spooky Movie International Film Festival, currently ongoing at the AFI Silver theater in Silver Spring, Maryland. In it, Henry Rollins plays a solitary grump who’s trying to escape from his past. That grump, Jack (Rollins, “Wrong Turn 2: Dead End”), lives in a beat-up apartment…
Cinema has the ability to document, dramatize, inspire and educate. Suffragette succeeds in doing all of these things, while also being hugely engaging and entertaining. Writer Abi Morgan and director Sarah Gavron, along with a committed cast including Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne-Marie Duff, Brendan Gleeson, Ben Whishaw and (very briefly) Meryl Streep, deliver…
A poignant love story, Arnaud Desplechin’s (“Jimmy P.”) My Golden Days (Trois souvenirs de ma jeunesse) is filled with warmth and humor and delivered with a lively and playful touch in the Desplechin style: The use of voice-overs, split screens, the iris-effect, and characters looking and speaking directly into the camera. Challenging us with numerous…
Babbling in a bubble. Like babbling in a bubble. No wise words. No intelligible ideas. Only an interminable babble of three carton-cut characters living in the little bubble that this film provides. Watching Wasp is like listening to an irrelevant insect buzzing around without it becoming anything but a mild nuisance in the background. The…
