Everlasting
Moments
Veteran Swedish director Jan Troell tells the story of a beleaguered
women who uses a camera to save her soul and her sanity, and Everlasting
Moments infuses the dark shadows of a troubled life with
ineffable beauty.
by Howard Schumann
Eric
Rohmer: an Appreciation
Chris Knipp offers his thoughts
on the career of the great French director, who died recently at the
age of 89.
FLICKS
by Chris Dashiell
NONE BUT THE LONELY HEART
(Clifford Odets, 1944).
The left-wing playwright Odets displayed his feeling for working class
struggle and gave Cary Grant a chance to play a serious role, in this
underrated drama about a drifter torn between his love of freedom and
the call of responsibility.
THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE
(Peter Yates, 1973).
Robert Mitchum is superb as an aging Boston crook trying to avoid doing
time, in a film of gritty naturalism that defies all the stereotypes
of the crime film genre.
KES
(Ken Loach, 1970).
A Yorkshire mining town boy, trapped in a dead end life, neglected at
home at bullied at school, captures and trains a falcon. Loach took
working class realism to a new level in this, his second feature.
NUMBER SEVENTEEN (Alfred Hitchcock, 1932).
A quickie from the master's early days about a group of strangers in
a dark house grappling with a mystery. The movie suffers from being
confined to a single set most of the time, and the plot is confusing,
but there are still enjoyments to be had.
IMPROMPTU
(James Lepine, 1991).
A romantic comedy about George Sand and Frederic Chopin would seem to
be a long-shot, but the great Judy Davis plays Sand with utter conviction,
and the film is a fun concoction.
GO
THERE
Airlock
Millions
of American workers lost their jobs this year. But that is of no account:
Up in the Air wants to know whether George
Clooney will find his one true love.
by Les
Phillips
Also reviewed: A Single Man.
Stumbling
to Salvation
Crazy Heart is a simple but emotionally resonant movie
about a 57-year-old alcoholic country singer (Jeff Bridges) whose career
is on the skids. Bridges and his supporting cast deliver some of the
year's best acting.
by Chris Knipp
Crazy
Like a Fox
Fantastic
Mr. Fox, Wes Anderson’s retro stop-motion animated
version of the classic Roald Dahl novel, features the silky smooth voice
of George Clooney in the title role, in a story that rejoices in the
knowledge of how unique we truly are.
by
Howard Schumann
Also reviewed : Somers Town
Good
Luck, Bad Luck
Christian McKay dominates every scene in Me and Orson Welles,
Richard Linklater's affectionate film about a teenager (Zac Efron) who
gets involved in Welles' epochal 1937 Mercury Theater production of
Julius Caesar.
by Chris Knipp
Days
of Rage
Uli Edel’s The Baader-Meinhof Complex
tells the story of a controversial radical group called the Red Army
Faction, that went on a violent rampage in Germany in the 1970s. The
director's aim is to portray as many as the events of this complicated
drama as possible, and it succeeds in conveying the half-crazed political
atmosphere of the time.
by
Chris Dashiell
The
Messenger
Oren Moverman's The Messenger tells of two army officers (Woody Harrelson
and Ben Foster) with the unenviable job of telling next-of-kin that
their loved ones have died in Iraq. Although the film never soars, it
feels authentic, and the acting is excellent.
by
Chris Knipp
Rounded
With a Sleep
There
are documentaries that gain their stature not in their innovatory or
revelatory power, but simply in the fact that they tell important things
in a straightforward manner. Such is the case with the 2006 BBC documentary
Shakespeare Behind Bars.
by
Dan Schneider
Precious
Lee
Daniels' film about an obese, sexually abused Harlem teenager can be
manipulative and slickly artificial, but ultimately the movie is so
bold, striking, eye-opening and thought-provoking that it inspires respect.
by Chris Knipp
The
Road
John
Hillcoat's version of the Cormac McCarthy novel is well-acted, and the
director has a genius for the hideous, but ultimately it seems a lot
like disaster porn.
by Les Phillips
Also reviewed:
Chris & Don, a Love Story.
Treeless Mountain
So
Yong Kim's second feature is a meticulously observed portrait of two
little Korean girls, coping with the terrors of having to rely mostly
on their own resources when their mother leaves to search for their
estranged father. It should touch everyone who has experienced feelings
of abandonment.
by Howard
Schumann
A
Badge of
Gold and Rust
High Noon, the 1952 Western that won Gary
Cooper his second Oscar, is not a great film, but its craft and innovation
make it at least a very good one.
by Dan Schneider
ON
LIFE'S TERMS
Jacques
Audiard’s A Prophet, about the evolution
of a young criminal in the French prison system, is one of the best
films of the year. Vlado Skafar’s Letter to a Child
poignantly conveys the innocence of childhood and its passage.
by Howard Schumann
