Few things at Toronto this year made me happier than the fact that I’m Not There, Todd Haynes’ much-questioned ‘biography’ of Bob Dylan, was good. Scratch that. Albeit uneven, the film glows with outrageously great moments, many featuring Cate Blanchett’s androgynous transformation. This is a wickedly smart and lively flick that sidesteps biopic clichés (like … Continue reading
"[Ridley] Scott is a decorator, a borrower, and a synthesist; like a great machine he contains all striking images and can deliver and fuse them, so long as the product is impersonal." That’s from David Thomson’s dismissive entry on the master in The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, and this bullshit attitude reminds us why … Continue reading
Buy this book from CHUD.com!I will not lie to you: I like naked women. I like looking at women naked, both in real life and in films. More than that, though, I like looking at famous women naked*. I used to buy Celebrity Skin magazine back when it made sense to buy a magazine. I … Continue reading
Michael Clayton feels like an exercise in restraining everything you like about George Clooney. It’s as if Tony Gilroy woke up every morning and asked himself, ‘How can I make the most personable and charming leading man of this generation dull and plodding? How long must I hold his charisma under the tepid water of … Continue reading
The new version of Blade Runner hitting Los Angeles and New York this weekend, known as Blade Runner: The Final Cut, is a marvel of technology and craftsmanship. The bar has been raised for the sort of wholesale restoration done here; not only is the picture immaculately detailed and crisp, the movie includes new special … Continue reading
Half fish-out-of-water procedural, half revenge film, Peter Berg’s The Kingdom is essentially a glowering remake of Beverly Hills Cop that works quite well whenever it’s de-emphasizing theme in favor of narrative convention. Exploiting Western/Saudi hostility for investigative suspense and one prolonged, expertly staged action sequence that ably blends the ground-level ferociousness of a Michael Mann … Continue reading
You can’t stop Ellen Page. She’s already a Toronto Fest vet, having appeared in films selected for the ’02, ’04 and ’05 festivals. In addition to this experimental teen runaway drama remix, Page appeared at Toronto this year in Juno (reviewed right here) and The Stone Angel. I hear she also spent a couple days … Continue reading
I feel like I should be unabashedly in critic love with Ellen Page, but I’m worried about her. She’s been wonderful in a couple films, but I fear that without some serious development she may burn through her bag of tricks even before she can have a 20-something flameout. It’s one thing to be preternaturally … Continue reading
Llewellyn Moss is in the sort of trouble you can’t even imagine. Out hunting one morning he comes across several shot-up pickups, a half-dozen stiffs and a case full of cash. Bales of heroin in one pickup leave no doubt that the cash is off-limits, just waiting to be reclaimed. Taking it seems so easy, … Continue reading
I get no small amount of amusement from the fact that the latest films from Bela Tarr and the Coen Brothers share the same plot. It’s a tribute to the infinite variability of storytelling and cinema that, despite a common narrative spine, the films couldn’t be more different. Looking at No Country For Old Men … Continue reading