Longing loneliness and rich romanticism collide in Tabu, each more a feeling than an idea, each dominating a portion of Miguel Gomes’ emotionally oppositional drama. Split nearly down the middle, the movie opens with a prologue and then devotes half of the following picture to part one (titled “Paradise Lost”) and the other half to…
At the 1988 Seoul Olympics, the Soviet Union basketball team beat the U.S. squad for the gold medal and more importantly, bragging rights. In what is assumed to be a U.S. dominated sport in which an American team had only failed to get the gold once before, they not only lost, but tragically, they lost…
Director Andrew Dominik’s third feature film after “Chopper” and “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,” 2012’s Killing Them Softly is a brutal tale of mob politics based on George V. Higgins’ 1974 novel “Cogan’s Trade.” On top of being a gritty gangster picture, the film provides a thoughtful commentary on America’s…
Not to personalize my critique too much, but the most frightening moment about Paranormal Activity 4 was when I tripped on a buffer cord coming out of the theater. The pain and embarrassment of my clumsiness, however, was nowhere near the agony I felt while watching what I hope will be the final installment of…
What do a flower-munching troll, a motion-capture performer, a dying uncle in bed, a tracksuit-wearing killer, and an accordion-playing band leader have in common? The answer is Denis Lavant. And cinema, too. These characters, all played by Lavant in various disguises throughout the course of the profoundly imaginative picture Holy Motors, have been plucked from…
Seven Psychopaths may be the best movie title of the year. Martin McDonagh certainly has a way of coming up with apt and memorable titles for the audience to carry around with them, he is also responsible for “In Bruges.” One could easily argue that Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson were also psychopaths in “In…
You don’t see the late ’70s or early ’80s get represented in the movies very often. Audiences are used to seeing movies set in the ’60s, during World War II or in the Old West, but seeing action take place in 1980 just feels foreign. Everybody still smokes (even on airplanes), shirt collars are enormous,…
