Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is based on a novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, who also wrote Everything is Illuminated, the movie by the same name being one of my all-time favorites. In each of these novels, Foer takes on heavy topics–9/11 and World War II–and the resulting transfers to film may not be everyone’s [...]
Read MoreThe Hedgehog is a near perfect little French movie. It’s the story of an 11-year-old girl who is smart and cynical, and decides to end her life on her 12th birthday. Why? She sees hypocrisy and emptiness in the lives of the adults around her. Paloma, inhabited beautifully by Garance Le Guillermic, is precocious, creative, [...]
Read MoreAfter getting over my initial surprise that its makers didn’t stoop to calling it a threequel, I actually discovered I sort of enjoyed this third Alvin and the Chipmunks, more than the first two, anyway, and with considerable wincing at the humiliation co-star David Cross endures for a paycheck.
Read MoreI will often get angry about U.S. remakes of foreign films, and it happens quite often, so this may explain my general demeanor. Eat Drink Man Woman becomes Tortilla Soup, Breathless (1960) becomes Breathless (1983), Il Postino becomes The Postman. That last one’s not really a remake, but I like to imagine that they were [...]
Read MoreWhatever history will decide were the merits of the Cold War, and beyond a shared belief in political fear mongering and secret microphones it’s all a bit dubious, it cannot be argued that the prime beneficiaries of nearly 40 years of undercover ‘spy-jinks’ (a word I just invented, and will now trademark in hopes of [...]
Read MoreCarnage comes with an excellent pedigree. It features the talents of Oscar winners Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz, and Oscar nominee John C. Reilly. Their collective filmographies contain some stellar performances, but I don’t think that this was one of them. Roman Polanski (also an Oscar winner for The Pianist) co-wrote the screenplay (with [...]
Read MoreAnyone who’s ever seen Adventures in Babysitting will instantly recognize The Sitter as little more than a copy of that classic 1987 comedy, albeit a crass, lazy and at times bizarre copy that represents a new career low for director David Gordon Green.
Read MoreElegant, worldly and perhaps the consummate summation of the French male ideal, singer/songwriter/post-modern rake Serge Gainsbourg’s music was as much a last gasp of the cabaret era as it was a life giving breath to the idea of “pop” music as grandiose, surreal storytelling. Admittedly his elegance was more Keith Richards, gutter cosmopolitan than court [...]
Read MoreI have, on more than one occasion, put forth the idea that George Clooney is the new Cary Grant. He’s cool, affable, and you don’t get creeped out if you see him with a woman half his age. The problem with my theory is the acting.
Read MoreThe Prince and the Showgirl has never existed on DVD, and The Video Station has been hanging on to its VHS copy for many years now, although it never rented much – the result of a very lukewarm reputation. My Week With Marilyn is the story of the making of The Prince and the Showgirl, [...]
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