“In order to rectify her own misery with judgmental, shrewish wino Annette, Julianne Moore has to suffer the shame of being caught cheating, the way Dick Cheney had to suffer the blame for all the waterboarding we needed to squash terrorism.”
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#7: “A story starring a child is allowed to be bloodcurdlingly violent without softening it with hand-holding guilt or apathetic abstraction.”
2010, the year movies crept off the screen and into the floorboards, the handhelds, the flats and the 3-Ds. Counting down to doomsday 2012, I hope more films like THE BLACK SWAN and ENTER THE VOID come our way.
Although most film noirs take place in an urban setting, the “dark city,” Winter’s Bone (Debra Granik, 2010) shows how the noir vision can thrive almost anywhere – it is[…]
Des Hommes et des Dieux, dir. Xavier Beauvois On the night of March 26, 1996, seven Trappist monks were abducted from the Monastery of Tibhirine in Algeria by members of[…]
by MATTHEW SORRENTO Guillermo del Toro has discussed how his childhood helped mold his imagination – being raised in a stern Roman Catholic family only fueled his dark fantasies. His[…]
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s latest film, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, the winner of this year’s Palme d’Or[…]
Consider the following plotline: A young man travels to another world where he infiltrates the indigenous people and adopts their ways. He is befriended by a beautiful young woman who[…]
by Matthew Sorrento Films often speculate about how we’d react should a partner we thought dead (or approaching death) suddenly reappear. In Cast Away, Tom Hanks’ character returns home to[…]
What do Bellissima (Visconti, 1951) and The Unknown Woman/La Sconsciuta (Zamarion/ Tornatore, 2006) have in common? Apart from being examples of Italian Cinema randomly connected by my recent viewing, the answer is they[…]
Film scholar David Bordwell describes – dismisses? – crime films as venues for showy roles, opportunities for actors to break away from their comfort zones and find their bad selves.[…]
Warsaw Film Festival Highlights (plus a few stray thoughts) 1) We Are What We Are – dir. Jorge Michel Grau, Mexico The set-up could come out of an old neorealist[…]
Always eager to present serious issues, Tyler Perry found a batch in Ntozake Shange’s play For colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf. Before entering filmmaking, Perry[…]
Documentaries · Festivals & Awards
DOC NYC, a new documentary festival that runs from November 3-9, features more than 40 films, U.S. premieres, tributes, and appearances, among them both Errol Morris and Werner Herzog. Films[…]
“The Killer Inside Me recalls the novel and film of American Psycho, in which a handsome killer unleashes three-dimensional violence on an otherwise banal society.” Puzzling, singular, and downright whacked, Francis Ford[…]
Activist & Political · Festivals & Awards
“For a brief week or two, adventurous filmgoers can capture elusive truths found in works of complexity, moral ambiguity, and seriousness of purpose, all uncensored.”
An ongoing column that looks at some of the most intriguing of recent, under-the-radar releases
Documentaries · Festivals & Awards
Boasting Werner Herzog and Errol Morris, fest sets a high standard
“When Banksy sits in silhouette during his onscreen interviews, we have no proof that it’s really him, nor even that Banksy is a real individual.”
