Wordlessly, empathetically filmed, is this documentary based on Loung Ung’s memoir of her torturous four years under the inhuman, communist regime of the Khmer Rouge (1975-1979); over two million Cambodian citizens lost their lives; Loung, raised in an educated, accomplished milieu in Phnom Penh, was five-years-old when she and her entire family were systematically stripped of their dignity. “First They ... Read More »
Directed by Hansal Mehta, filmed entirely in the U.S. cities of Atlanta and Las Vegas, loosely based on a true story, “Praful/Simran” a thirty-year-old, divorced, Gujarati, housekeeping employee succumbing to a gambling addiction and resorting to robbing banks to salvage her debt. The film is immensely fun, racy, infused with satisfying, marvelous manipulation; imbued with “Pretty Woman”, “Bonnie and Clyde” ... Read More »
Writer/director Darren Aronofsky pushes the “envelope” into oblivion with this blistering, harrowing film, focusing on Christian/Biblical iconography, philosophy; a massive, bloody metaphor for inventiveness, inspiration, and “if at first you don’t succeed”, give it another go! From its commencement there is something awry in this May/December pairing, a chasm between the perpetually cooking, cleaning, painting housewife and her mate’s frenetic ... Read More »
“If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it is also within my power to take a life”. Hippocratic Oath. Baltasar Kormakur accomplishes a remarkable feat of directing himself in this stunning thriller set in the frigid, gloriously pristine landscape of Reykjavik, Iceland; “Finnur” (Kormakur) a renown heart surgeon, has a seemingly perfect life, blessed ... Read More »
Writer/Director Hallie Meyers-Shyer, daughter of Nancy Myers (“It’s Complicated”) tries, unsuccessfully to clone themes from past Myers films; which might have worked if the characters had not been shallow, paper mache replicas, ubiquitous in a myriad of B-movies: separated, forty-year-old mother, “Alice” (Reese Witherspoon’s effervescence fizzled at the halfway point) with two synthetically, precocious daughters “Isabel” and “Rosie” (Lola Flannery, ... Read More »
“Dancing is the highest intelligence in the freest body” spoken by Isadora Duncan (1877-1927), an icon of innovative, communicative movement. Husband/wife directors, Angelin Preljocaj and Valerie Muller have presciently adapted Bastien Vives’s novel into a visual homage; the transformation of a spirited, precocious, classically trained ballerina into a contemporary, avant garde interpreter of movement; a translation of the soul into tangible ... Read More »
This was the summer of discontent in filmic mediocrity; “The Beguiled”,”A Ghost Story”, “Landline”, a few fabulous flops, earning top grades for ennui, enervation and exhaustion. The anemic, paltry product led me to visit Patrick Hughes’s “The Hitman’s Bodyguard”, expecting explosive vapidity I was gleefully surprised to find myself laughing out loud, enjoying predictability, but primarily the comedic charms of ... Read More »
The tulip is my most favorite flower; I love its capricious personality, its up and down mood swings; I love its heartiness, its whimsy, its myriad of colors; tulips shed happiness, satisfaction, warmth. Unfortunately Director Justin Chadwick’s adaptation of Deborah Moggach’s seventeenth novel lacks the pungency, redolence, joy, blooming potency of the magical tulip. Actors Alicia Vikander, Christoph Waltz, Dane ... Read More »
Director Eliza Hittman, tackles with unbiased honesty, the grey befuddled, muddled area between boyhood and manhood; painful indecisiveness of one’s sexuality, conforming or railing against society’s code of acceptance; nineteen-year-old “Frankie” (British actor Harris Dickinson, overwhelms in this poignant, heartbreaking role, coming to terms with burgeoning homosexuality, a looming frightening future; beyond handsome, he is a magnet for women and ... Read More »
At “times” movie titles make absolutely no sense, no segway into the scenario; the viewer, if unaware of the synopsis, is befuddled; “Clockwork Orange”,” Reservoir Dogs”, “Cloverfield” but “Good Time” written and directed by Benny and Josh Safdin, tips the scale in nonsensical, baffling titles; they have created another gritty crime caper in the bowels of New York City’s disenfranchised, ... Read More »
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