They Shot the Piano Player (2024)
Spanish director Fernando Truaba is one of those [...]
Archive for December, 2011
The Artist (2011)
What a glorious movie this is! What a wonderful love letter to the cinema! And what a risk it was to make this film in the 21st century at a time when Hollywood studios would rather swim in safer waters then venture out and take a risk. Here is a silent film, shot in gorgeous black and […]
The Iron Lady (2011)
I suppose that the difficulty in playing Margaret Thatcher is the same as playing Richard Nixon. Both had such well-known, distinct and distinguishable personality traits, and both had been parodied so often, that getting to the meat of the personality without mocking is a daunting task. The first thing to report about The Iron Lady, […]
Young Adult (2011)
The first few scenes of Young Adult tells us, without words, exactly everything we need to know about its subject, and therefore signals that this isn’t just another romantic comedy. By the ten minute mark we already feel that we know everything we need to know about Mavis Gary. She’s nearing 40, divorced, lives alone […]
The Captains (2011)
I know exactly what I expected from William Shatner’s documentary The Captains, a retrospective journey in which the actor sits down with the five actors who have proceeded him in playing the various captains on the various Star Trek incarnations. I expected a bouncy, kitschy, rather superfluous, romp through the mish-mash of the Star Trek […]
Happy Feet Two (2011)
Happy Feet Two is a baffling experience. Here is a movie that overwhelms us with enough story elements for nine movies and enough environmental messages to keep Al Gore on his toes for the rest of his life. We get messages about the importance of family and friends; messages about the environment; respecting each other; […]
Shame (2011)
The most intriguing films about sex, for me, are the ones that deal with the people involved. The act itself is merely acrobatics, any idiot with a camera can shoot genitals in action, but it takes a film artist to put meaning behind those acts. Such was the case with Wayne Wang’s brilliant 2001 drama […]
