The Devil does many things in movies. He rides out, he has a brigade, he hangs out with Miss Jones and Daniel Webster, and he even thumbs a ride. And, apparently, he lives in a farmhouse in rural Brazil in the aptly named The Devil Lives Here. (This would be useful information for the local…
Well, that was upsetting. The new documentary, Blood on the Mountain, about the coal industry’s insidious and nefarious relationship with the people and land of West Virginia, is an investigation into the corporate and political cover-up of a history steeped in exploitation and suffering. It’s also an indictment of the communities willing to trade that…
Isaac Ezban’s The Similars (Los Parecidos) is an inventive, daring psychological thriller about eight people stranded in a remote bus depot during a never-ending thunderstorm. It’s relatively short (89 minutes) and exquisitely sweet with intensity and mystery that grow with each passing moment. It’s dark, it’s rainy, and poor Ulises (Gustavo Sánchez Parra, “Get the…
It’s hard to dissect a movie when you can’t even tell what it’s going for in the first place. Such is the case with My Dead Boyfriend, a bizarre dark comedy with a lot going on, but very little to say. As its only the second feature directed by prolific actor Anthony Edwards and based…
Lew Ayres, who starred in the classic 1931 anti-war film (and Best Picture Academy Award winner), “All Quiet on the Western Front,” was so affected by that movie, he became a conscientious objector and served as a medic in World War II (and was later to earn a Best Actor nomination for “Johnny Belinda”). Others…
Xavier Dolan opens It’s Only the End of the World with the caption: “Somewhere a while ago, already.” The comma is extremely important, as it plays with the past tense of a while ago and the present tense of the already, almost as a physical presence, already there. It was a while ago since I…
While The Unknown Girl, the latest film by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (“Two Days, One Night”), is suggestive of social and political issues such as immigration, unemployment, and economic imbalance, its main concern is with moral character, accountability, and spiritual redemption. Like many other films of the Dardenne Brothers, it is simple, natural, and direct,…
