I am not fluent or even remotely familiar with the French language. But, after watching Michael Haneke’s “Amour” and listening to it play out four more times in the movie theater where I work, I became attuned to repetitive patterns in the dialogue. From merely listening to “Amour,” I learned the French translation for the [...]
Sometimes, maybe most of the time, ambiguous endings are cop-outs. The crime isn’t in subverting audience expectations—who wants movies without surprises?—but in betraying the stories themselves. Most stories deserve definitive endings, and audiences are rightfully frustrated when they don’t get them. But sometimes the situation is reversed and an ambiguous ending is the only way [...]
Paul Thomas Anderson has a taste for the epic. It was always there, from the sprawling spectacle of “Boogie Nights” (1997) to the experimental spider web narrative of “Magnolia” (1999) and the magnificent fireball of ambition and greed that was “There Will Be Blood” (1997). “The Master,” Anderson’s sixth feature, is epic, but in its own [...]
When you ask people in the industry what makes a good film, one of the most common answers is ‘a good story’. This is what is missing in most of Wes Anderson’s films. I remember watching other audience members walk out of “The Life Aquatic” early on, just as I was getting my teeth into [...]
Aki Kaurismäki is one of those directors whose work is impossible to confuse with anyone else’s. Certainly, his style could be compared to Béla Tarr’s in the somberly staged performance of the actors. The Hungarian master’s work is more stately in its pace, though, with a blanket of chiaroscuro drawn across every frame. Kaurismäki’s [...]
“Extraterrestrial” Director: Nacho Vigalondo Writer: Nacho Vigalondo Starring: Michelle Jenner, Carlos Areces, Julián Villagrán “Extraterrestrial” is a movie I’ve been excited about for a while, in part because of how it was marketed – the small, almost invisible glimpses of the alien ships in the posters, and the creative viral marketing aspect to it all. [...]
Someday, everyone you know won’t exist. Tomorrow doesn’t matter until it’s today. No one makes it through life unscathed, in one way or another. These are just a few of the lessons found in “Things I Don’t Understand,” a small indie rumination with big pretensions. In his follow up to his debut feature “…Around” (2008), [...]
Given the recent surge of 1980s popular culture nostalgia, discussions of that decade’s iconic films unfailingly revert to the unique 1980s teen comedy genre, always dominated by the catalog of John Hughes. But sadly, some outstanding films from that era are overlooked or even forgotten, and all teen movies from this period seem to be [...]
“Melancholia” is Lars von Trier’s intelligent, melodramatic, achingly beautiful and wickedly funny new film. It tells the story of Justine (a transcendent Kirsten Dunst), a severe depressive, and her doting and practical sister, Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg). Justine’s depression takes the corporeal shape of a planet called Melancholia, which is on a steady collision course with [...]
Making a comedy about cancer is risky business. Making a comedy about a young, attractive person with cancer is self-sabotage. People don’t go to mainstream movies to be bummed out, or to be offended by the trivializing of something that should bum them out. Director Jonathan Levine (“The Wackness”) has a simple solution to this [...]
Why did we watch ‘Amour?’
Short and Swede
No: Too Good at Recreating the 80s
Lawrence of Arabia: Deserving of its Place in the Sun
Top 10 of 2012Sound of My Voice (2012)The Master (2012)
‘Village at the End of the World’: Help Wanted?
‘Eat Sleep Die’: Asking for a little more
From Senegal to Saudi Arabia: Girls working for change
