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(04/05/15 9:24pm)
What immortal hands or eyes can keep framing James Bond’s famous fearful symmetry? Bond, after all, has nearly become a genre in himself, from his offshoots in Jason Bourne from the Bourne films and Jack Bauer in the television series “24” (2001), making it more difficult to innovate within this iconic genre. Matthew Vaughn, the director of “Kick-Ass”(2010) and “X-Men: First Class” (2011) brings a new and youthful exuberance to the dated spy framework with his “Kingsman: The Secret Service” (2014) and dusts the cobwebs off Bond’s aged suit.
(03/29/15 9:01pm)
Many of us have fond memories of the hockey film “Miracle” (2004,) which tells the story of how the 1980 U.S. men’s hockey team defeated the juggernaut Soviet team at the Lake Placid, New York Winter Olympics. Much like the Space Race, this game was steeped in Cold War politics and pitted capitalism against communism in the battle for global and athletic supremacy. In short, hockey was war, and the Russians had the biggest guns. While we savor our underdog American victory, in all the patriotic fanfare, we forget about those fallen Red Goliaths. The documentary “Red Army” (2014) shows “Miracle” from the other side, giving audiences a rare glimpse behind the Iron Curtain.
(03/08/15 11:30pm)
“I’d rather have cancer,” Alice Howland (Julianne Moore) , a Columbia University linguistic professor and mother of three, admits as she slowly succumbs to the ravages of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease at the age of 50. In “Still Alice” (2014), Howland is robbed of the two vitals that sustain her in life — words and family. Slow, restrained and infinitely sympathetic, the film becomes a nursing home, the audience Howland’s caretakers, as we watch every inch of her decline into helplessness.
(03/06/15 2:55am)
(03/01/15 11:11pm)
How can you say “break a leg” to an actor who already has a broken heart, a shattered psyche and a fractured family life without it being a cruel joke? Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton), the lead in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s four-time Academy-Award-winning, including Best Picture “Birdman: Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)” (2014), is that actor, the washed-up movie star salivating for a shot back in the limelight. Himself a former superhero star — Keaton played Batman in Tim Burton’s “Batman” (1989) and “Batman Returns” (1992) — the role is fittingly mimetic. With crow’s feet the size of talons and referring to himself as a “turkey with leukemia,” Thomson is like Birdman without feathers; vulnerable to the cold of an icy, unsympathetic populous, his goose seems nearly cooked.
(02/22/15 11:31pm)
Call Disney what you want, but one thing they’ve always mastered is the sidekick. From chameleon Pascal in “Tangled” (2010) to snowman Olaf in “Frozen” (2013), their anthropomorphic pals are experts in comic relief. Like Shakespearean fools, they package comedy and wisdom together into a digestible pill for whenever the protagonist needs that little dose of reality. Yet, you will never see one of them up for the Oscar for best supporting actor. It is a shame, because Baymax, the cuddly, awkward Michelin Man doppelganger in “Big Hero 6” (2014) rivals J.K. Simmons in “Whiplash” (2014), this year’s winner in the best supporting actor category.
(02/15/15 11:40pm)
We are just six days away from the 87th Academy Awards on Feb. 22, 2015. They will be hosted by none other than Neil Patrick Harris, who has hosted numerous Tony and Emmy Award ceremonies. Here are my predictions of the major award winners for this year. Note: these are not my opinions of the ones that are most deserving. I’m just playing the Oscar game, which is as peculiar and unpredictable as the films themselves.
(02/08/15 11:05pm)
It’s odd seeing a propaganda film nowadays. There seems so little to cheer about in America — what could a director praise? Clint Eastwood’s hagiographic “American Sniper” (2014) lauds the murders of the deadliest sniper in American military history, Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper), while introducing a brand of colonialist racism reminiscent of the American settlers’ against the Native Americans. This cloying, skewed film plays more like an army recruitment video than a biopic. Coming from the man who spoke to an empty chair at the 2012 Republican National Convention, I’m not surprised.
(02/01/15 11:05pm)
What does possession look like? Does it entail crawling up walls, becoming a vessel for Satan and vomiting up green slime as in “The Exorcist” (1973)? Or is it subtler, with glazed, absent eyes, isolation and monomania? If “The Exorcist” were set at the Juilliard School, the result would be “Whiplash” (2014). Director Damien Chazelle wrote the screenplay to “The Last Exorcism Part II” (2013), and brings his demonic expertise to this compact gem of perfection.
(01/26/15 2:38am)
The new Disney films are like bottled water — they repackage something classic, give it all these bells and whistles and come up with something no better than the original. We shell out our money nonetheless, consuming this trivial drivel as if we are expecting something new. After “Maleficent” (2014) I swore to myself not to see another live-action Disney adaptation, yet some masochistic force or evil fairy godmother compelled me to the theater to see their latest offering, “Into the Woods” (2014).
(01/23/15 5:08am)
We could all be flâneurs — the ambling, idling scholars of 19th century Paris. We could all soak in the rich, historic landscape of our frigid hamlet.
(01/23/15 5:01am)
Can I meet you,on the Green?We could find some incredible things.Farmers, frisbees, falling leaves,Saw the lines and I thought: Oh my god,Look at those crepes, kettle corn and pink cupcakes.Grab my cash, and stuff my face.
(01/12/15 12:04am)
If you got Sherlock Holmes off of opium and onto grass, threw him into the 1970s and ramped up his libido, you would approximately end up with Larry “Doc” Sportello, the bumbling, high-as-a-kite detective and protagonist in Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film, “Inherent Vice” (2014). The idea of a Thomas Pynchon novel being adapted into a Paul Thomas Anderson film might sound like a recipe for an abstruse mess — Pynchon’s novels have often been deemed “unfilmable” — but somehow they gel, finding a middle ground where incomprehension is made up for by zeitgeist and farce.
(01/04/15 10:39pm)
There’s an unfortunate irony in Morten Tyldum’s choosing “The Imitation Game” (2014) as the title for his most recent movie, since he has recycled aspects of “The King’s Speech” (2010) in pursuit of claiming some of those shiny golden statues. Then again, Tom Hooper’s masterpiece is not the worst movie to emulate. Just replace the stuttering King George VI with the stuttering mathematician Alan Turing and use the same composer (Alexandre Desplat) and you should have Best Picture. Despite Benedict Cumberbatch’s performance, “The Imitation Game” is not on par with theng former Oscar-winner, and I hope the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has the sense not to bite again.
(11/09/14 10:58pm)
The Space Race pitted the Soviet Union and United States against each other in a battle for space supremacy, spanning 17 years and leading to innovations in satellite technology, computers and space transport. The race also helped to bankrupt the Soviet economy.
(11/02/14 11:11pm)
Any film that designates itself a “zom-rom-com,” or zombie romantic comedy, must suffer from an identity crisis. To wed the gratuitously overused zombie and rom-com genres is parody itself, and it’s not surprising that such a film’s audiences might try to divorce the viewing experience from their minds.
(10/26/14 9:53pm)
If you took Bill Murray’s floundering, philosophical narcissist from “Lost in Translation” (2003), threw in alcoholism and a Russian prostitute, then let him desiccate into an even more pruney scumbag, you’d produce his “St. Vincent” (2014) character, Vincent. He’s the kind of guy who touches all the apples at the supermarket, pockets his favorite and walks away.
(10/19/14 7:49pm)
Vibrant, encompassing, kaleidoscopic and free-flowing: these words evoke images from “The Epic of American Civilization,” commonly known as the Orozco Mural. Its expressive richness was typical of the early 20th century’s Mexican muralism movement, spearheaded by Diego Rivera and Orozco himself. Director Jorge Gutierrez’s first animated feature film, “The Book of Life” (2014), brings muralism into the 21st century, creating a bustling, sumptuous 3-D adventure that explodes off the screen.
(10/12/14 7:30pm)
David Fincher’s famous works center around the psychologically perverse, presenting the warpath left behind not by villains donning capes or masks, but by those hiding among us. John Doe (“Se7en” (1995)), Tyler Durden (“Fight Club” (1999)) and the Zodiac killer (“Zodiac” (2007)) are all highly calculating, sadistic and nearly invisible murderers who nihilistically revel in the ensuing chaos. Fincher’s “Gone Girl” (2014) adds another volume to his oeuvre of highly successful thrillers, based off the hit 2012 novel by Gillian Flynn, who also wrote the film’s screenplay. Flynn altered the ending to compel the book’s fans to the theater. I haven’t read the book, which left me blissfully unaware of comparisons and fully gripped by the film.
(09/28/14 7:54pm)
The sad clown character originated in 17th-century France with Pierrot, a tragically naïve lover. An emblem for the lonely sufferer and struggling artist, the character appeared on Europe’s stage for three centuries.