JACKIE (Fox Searchlight – December 9): The most impressive film of the festival thus far is director Pablo Larrain’s jewel-like examination of the realities and artifices behind our perceptions of history, viewed through the prism of Jackie Kennedy, who is played by Natalie Portman in a performance that goes beyond (brilliant) impersonation to deliver […]
Few movies are as wholeheartedly dedicated to meta-ness as Martin McDonagh’s SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS. The title of the movie is also the title of the script its main character Marty (Colin Farrell)–which, I believe, is short for “Martin”–is trying to write. It’s also a tally that the movie keeps track of as the story moves […]
One of the things that happens at film festivals is that as you see many films in back-to-back proximity, mini-trends start to emerge, at least in the mind, and pictures that were made entirely separately, and which may well end up released months apart from each other, seem to be in direct competition. So […]
With The Silver-Linings Playbook and now Wayne Blair’s THE SAPPHIRES, Harvey Weinstein may have the feel-good part of the coming awards season locked down. This slight but charming true story (or at least “inspired by” one) about an Australian singing group is like the happytime version of Dreamgirls. The story is set in 1968 Australia, a time when, […]
ON CHESIL BEACH (no distrib): Ian McEwan’s longish novella/shortish novel has been adapted by McEwan himself into a fluid and extremely English film, the first feature directed by stage director Dominic Cooke. The main action takes place during the honeymoon night of Florence (Saorirse Ronan) and Edward (Billy Howle) in 1962, with copious flashbacks […]
JOJO RABBIT (Fox Searchlight – October 4): The discourse about Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit has quickly become a debate between those who think its Nazi-era black comedy is authentically daring, and those who feel its purported audacity is a pretense covering a merely middlebrow sensibility. (Note: every person in the history of language who […]
KODACHROME (no distrib): AKA that page of the indie movie playbook marked “Dysfunctional Family Road Trip To Redemption.” Jonathan Tropper (This Is Where I Leave You) wrote the script, and it has his novels’ mix of damaged-man soap and rom-com. This one features a dying dad (Ed Harris), who has the kind of incurable […]
Francois Ozon’s IN THE HOUSE is a delicious examination of the pleasures and dangers of addictive narrative. Storytelling (and corresponding tricks of cinematic structure) has been an interest of Ozon’s throughout his career, in films like Sitcom, Swimming Pool, 5×2 and Angel, and here he approaches the subject from a new angle. The setting is […]