“Ever drifting down the stream – Lingering in the golden gleam – Life, what is it but a dream?” – Lewis Carroll The question of whether we are the dreamers or the one’s being dreamed is explored in Raul Ruiz’ opus posthumous Night Across the Street, a playful and loving adieu that was filmed as…
The Oranges borrowed the underlying suburban malaise of “American Beauty” and remolded it into a comedy. West Orange, New Jersey resembles the 2000 Best Picture winner but the atmosphere is different. The characters still make horrible choices which impact their immediate families and friends, but the looming dread and depression are replaced by a lighter…
Robert Miller (Richard Gere) is guilty of multiple felonies including involuntary manslaughter and investment fraud, but he is not really an evil man. In fact, the audience is on his side in Arbitrage; you want him to win and get away with it all. You feel this way not because you’re callous and root for…
According to English Professor Jack Lynch, “Lies, once they are accepted as true, take on a life of their own, one that lasts long after the original falsehoods have been exposed.” The power of the continued acceptance of lies is reflected in Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt, a disturbing story of the false accusation of a…
The town in Frankenweenie is New Holland and it must be Tim Burton’s dream of what a town should be. There is a large windmill hovering on the edge of town, an abnormally spacious pet cemetery, and most of the school kids are various shades of macabre characters from horror literature and films. Even the…
In 1968 in Paris, France, the something in the air was revolution. In March of that year, a single spark began a revolt when a small group of students at Nanterre University took to the streets to protest conditions at the University. By July, workers had shut down Paris with a general strike in which…
Sounds punctuate the neighborhood in Kleber Filho’s exhilarating Neighboring Sounds (Brazilian title, O som ao redor): A dog barks incessantly, street vendors blast their stereos, the noise of TVs reverberate through the streets, a vacuum cleaner rumbles, a washing machine vibrates, and a car sideswipes another. Neighboring Sounds employs a wealth of cinematography and sound…
