An extended, at times bravura, based-on-a-true-story riff on Ocean’s 11 (call it Petit’s 5), The Walk revisits – and in the process, fictionalizes, sensationalizes, and sanitizes – the subject covered by James Marsh’s justifiably lauded, Academy Award-winning 2008…
To fully understand and enjoy Jafar Panahi’s three latest projects, it is strongly suggested to become versed in his current legal circumstances. The Iranian director has made an unofficial trilogy of “non-films” since the instatement of his 20-year ban on filmmaking by his country’s government, and like the first two, Taxi stands as a piece of protest art …
A thrilling and highly captivating film, Room tells the unique, highly intriguing story of a boy born and raised in a single room finally seeing the world. It shares much of the depth of Plato’s allegory of the cave, wherein a caveman sees the sun for the first time and it opens up his mind to the limitlessness of existence. In this case, Jack (Jacob Tremblay) is said…
A protégé of Hong Sang-soo, Lee Kwang-Kuk shares in his master’s whimsy and prose, but lacks severely his charm and depth. Though as lighthearted as a Sang-soo film, Matter of Interpretation does not have the underlying philosophical motive or deep character resonance which makes the former’s films so brilliant. Instead, Matter of Interpretation is rather…
Joachim Trier’s English feature Louder Than Bombs is an exceptionally well directed and well written story of a family still grieving the loss of their matriarch when a retrospective of her photojournalism of the Middle East occurs three years after her death. Gene (Gabriel Byrne), the patriarch, and his sons Jonah (Jesse Eisenberg) and Conrad (Devin…
Using time-lapse photography, Rappmund channels the topography of the 800 mile Trans-Alaska Pipeline. In doing so, he raises a study of duality, wherein nature and industry are centrally figured. The photography reveals certain distinctions between the environment and man’s use thereof, particularly drawing attention to the living qualities of…
Eighteen years ago, Quentin Tarantino followed up his smash break-out hit Pulp Fiction with a cooler-received adaptation (his only to date) of Elmore Leonard’s novel Rum Punch retitled Jackie Brown. For some reason, many critics and fans didn’t take to this film…
The Walk is a superb end-of-summer popcorn flick. It is able to truly use the tools and techniques of modern computer-generated imagery so that they heighten the emotions of the story on screen. In this age of Marvel Mania, true action-adventure spectacle is rare. Today, CG technology has become cinema’s greatest blight …
Demented, delirious, and absolutely hilarious, Guy Maddin’s maddening yet brilliant pastiche of cinema and the dreamworld is as bizarre as it is genius. It is difficult to say, actually, whether the film is a work of complete insanity or a work of complete brilliance: I must concede that it is both. Quite clearly influenced by surrealism, acid, and temporary…
Beeba Boys, a farcical mockery of classic gangster films, and an insensitive caricature of factual violence in Vancouver, is a grand step backwards for famed Indo-Canadian director, Deepa Mehta. Its phony appeal and superfluous gesticulations are akin to glamourous Bollywood films which lack substance but provide much superficial pleasure. A perfect metaphor…