Sure, we have all seen our share of an “Unstable Mabel” in cinema throughout the years. Some, more than others, do stand out in craziness, chaos and curiosity. These furious females in film–at least the ones that we will spotlight in this particular movie column–have something to their off-kilter filter that dares to dig deep …
Jazz can be vivacious and alive, but it can also get down real low. It becomes reserved, intimate, raw and wholly adult. Bebop demands a refined ear and a patient listener, and good music challenges you to listen closely and find the blues and pain within.
On this, my last day of the festival, I saw two films that didn’t make me smile but made me glad I was there. Both The Look of Silence and Low Down proved to be among my favorites, this despite the fact that they are bleak, hard to watch, and provocative pieces of filmmaking. The …
Of course, Guardians isn’t perfect, as it struggles to find a consistent tone. Sometimes it wants to be more adult, with bawdier language and sexual innuendo. For instance, Quill’s rumination that “If I had a black light, this place would look like a Jackson Pollock painting!” is pretty sophisticated for mainstream PG-13 fare. Other times, it feels as though the filmmakers are pandering to a much younger audience. You can almost visualize a ‘Dancing Groot’ doll gyrating in your kid’s Happy Meal.
For every good sequence, there’s one that’s muddled with bad camerawork and editing. Like a lot of blockbuster action, it’s barely legible; you have to work to keep up with it, and that work interferes with the enjoyment. The story also sags in the middle, as it seems to exist mainly to fill out the run-time. The protagonists take the MacGuffin to a dude they wish to sell it to, but the only real function of the section is to exposit what it is. It turns a big chunk of the plot into a shrug.
101 Dalmatians Directed by Stephen Herek Written by John Hughes Starring Glenn Close, Jeff Daniels, Joely Richardson, Hugh Laurie 102 Dalmatians Directed by Kevin Lima Written by Kristen Buckley and Brian Regan & Bob Tzudkier and Noni White Starring Glenn Close, Gerard Depardieu, Eric Idle How lazy are we willing to allow filmmakers to be …
Albert Nobbs Directed by Rodrigo Garcia Screenplay by Glenn Close and John Banville U.K, Ireland, 2011 Mainstream cinema has a difficult time tackling what some big studio executives might view as the ‘icky’ side of gender politics. Cross-dressing, homosexuality and its oft-maligned offspring themes of homo-eroticism, transsexuals, etc. These are topics which, if one is …