American philosopher William James said that, “Reality, life, experience, concreteness, immediacy, use what word you will, exceeds our logic, overflows, and surrounds it.” This statement is especially true for children whose goals and dreams are subject not only to the real problems they face but are in part determined by their parent’s ability to handle…
The father of former San Francisco Mayor Jack Shelley once told him, “The day you forget where you came from, you won’t belong where you are.” This advice is not lost on Chris Guthrie (Agyness Deyn, “Clash of the Titans”), a young woman coming of age in Terence Davies’ (“The Deep Blue Sea”) Sunset Song….
Jean-Paul Sartre famously wrote that hell is other people. Ben Wheatley and Amy Jump’s adaptation of J. G. Ballard’s 1975 novel takes this premise to its (il)logical conclusion, as, in an ironic twist on the title, High-Rise depicts a steady descent into class war-induced delirium, as social and financial divisions steadily turn the eponymous building…
Generally, part of the charm of international cinema is that it’s specifically and obviously not Hollywood cinema. So when something like the Norwegian disaster drama The Wave tries so desperately and artlessly to ape similarly themed Hollywood blockbusters, there’s a sense of overwhelmingly suffocating futility that plagues the project. Of course, if The Wave actually…
Neil Hamburger’s first gig in town was Neil Hamburger’s last gig in town. It took place on one of those flawless summer nights during which the desire to be covered by the sky tends to turn any indoor activity into an uncanny choice. And uncanny was the result. His act was the antithesis of the…
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…
Gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Republican and Democratic national conventions was still being offered by CBS and NBC in 1968, but ABC, lacking their resources, limited their coverage to a few hours in the evening and highlighted it with a ten-night debate between conservative author and commentator William F. Buckley Jr. and flamboyant liberal novelist and…
