The San Francisco I knew as a young man was a place with a sense of community and culture that welcomed the adventurous, the imaginative, the creative, and the marginalized. Though, like every other major U.S. city, it was not always a place of harmony, and some neighborhoods had its dangers for outsiders, yet it…
As the year ends and holidays approach, more and more Oscar bait gets churned out for Academy consideration. Lost in this glut is the release of lesser-known foreign films that get quickly shoveled into American obscurity after getting viewed by a privileged select few. Lost in Paris, sadly, will likely become of those undiscovered gems….
It’s funny what language can do, the unintended irony behind words and concepts and colors that were likely never part of any authorial intent. But, then again, maybe they were. That’s the inexhaustible fertility of art; it transcends, whether it wants it or not, intentions. That’s the case with Spanish, still sprouting in a place…
The first rule of a frightening film, as outlined in meta masterpieces like “The Cabin in the Woods” and “Scream,” is that in order to be punished, our protagonists must first transgress. Going somewhere they shouldn’t, engaging in nefarious activities, hurting another person (whether they meant to or not) . . . one or all…
Writer-director Graham Jones (“The History Student,” “The Randomers,” “How to Cheat in the Learning Certificate”) can be astutely described as a lyrical Irish filmmaker with moving narratives that seem so personal and profound in dramatic simplicity. In Jones’s latest indie drama Nola and the Clones he helms yet another soulful exposition grounded in the given realities of…
Ok, so this means not to be a partisan review, OK? Yes, it means to broach its subject from a reasonable, logical standpoint. Yes, it in no way wills to oversee the bear gut and occasional sentimentality of the film it sets to look at. Yes, it wants to talk about current issues while taking…
Director Nicholas Hytner (“The History Boys”) serves up a poignant portrait of a disillusioned elderly British bag lady marching to the beat of her own distinctive drum in the uplifting and quirky dramedy The Lady in the Van. Hytner’s touching and slightly offbeat character study is certainly a triumphant turn for revered veteran actress Dame…
