Lambert Wilson and Michael Lonsdale in "Of Gods and Men"
“OF GODS AND MEN” (Now available)
Terrific movie.
Infuriating DVD packaging.
“Of Gods and Men” is one of the year’s finest films. This French release, winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes last year, centers on the monks of the Tibehirine Monastery in Algeria’s Atlas Mountains, who in 1996 were abducted by Islamic revolutionaries then waging war against the government.
Several months later the monks’ severed heads were returned to the monastery for burial.
Happily, this isn’t a film about dying. Rather, Xavier Beauvois has made a movie about living. Continue Reading »
Posted in Art house fare, New on DVD | Tagged Algeria, Lambert Wilson, Michael Lonsdale, monasticism, Tibehirine | 1 Comment »
Jim Fisher never looked to me like a newspaperman.
He looked like a Kansas rancher.
While most career journalists are prone to corpulence (too many donuts, too much time sitting at a keyboard), Jim was as lean as the Marlborough Man…with whom he shared a love of tobacco.
From the day I first met Jim in the city room of the Kansas City Star until my last sighting of him more than a decade ago, his looks hardly ever changed.
He always had a four-day growth of chin stubble (I never understood this…at some point wouldn’t it either turn into an actual beard or be cut back to baby-bottom smoothness?). His hair was trimmed close…not quite Marine D.I. close, but getting there.
His wardrobe never varied: Well-worn blue jeans, a wrinkled shirt Continue Reading »
Posted in Reveries, Uncategorized | Tagged jim fisher, journalism, manual typewriters | 4 Comments »
Rutger Hauer goes postal in "Hobo with a Shotgun"
“HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN” (Available July 5)
Is it a good bad movie? A bad good movie?
“Hobo with a Shotgun” muddies the distinctions.
It’s based on a fan-created faux trailer that won Quentin Tarantino’s Grindhouse Trailer Contest, which means that from the outset this tale of a hobo (Rutger Hauer) who single-handedly cleans up a corrupt, crime-riddled city is packed with over-the-top violence and bad (deliberately so, one hopes) acting.
After all, the Grindhouse concept embraces the lurid tackiness Continue Reading »
Posted in New on DVD, Popcorn movies | Tagged "Hobo with a Shotgun", Quentin Tarantino, Rutger Hauer | Leave a Comment »
Carla Gugino and Timothy Olyphant in "Elektra Luxx"
“ELEKTRA LUXX” (Now available)
I’ll watch Carla Gugino in anything (“Spy Kids” movies excepted); apparently I’m not alone in this.
Which may account for the straight-to-video success of 2009’s “Women in Trouble” and now this sequel, “Elektra Luxx.”
Both comedies feature Gugina — ravishing in blond wig and cleavage-challenging fashions — as Elektra Luxx, a legendary porn star. This new entry finds Elektra retired from the skin game and pregnant with the baby of a recently deceased rock star.
The films — both directed by Sebastian Gutierrez — are story thin and smarm rich. Basically they’re a series of loosely-related comic episodes Continue Reading »
Posted in New on DVD, Popcorn movies | Tagged Adrianne Palicki, Carla Gugino, Elektra Luxx, Eric Stolz, Julianne Moore, Justin Kirk, Kathleen Quinlan, Lucy Punch, Malin Akerman, Marley Shelton, porn star, Timothy Olyphant, Vincent Katheiser | 1 Comment »
Buck Brannaman
“BUCK” My rating: B+ (Opens wide on July 1)
88 minutes | MPAA rating: PG
Heroes are hard to come by in this day and age. But I think we’ve got a new one.
Buck Brannaman trains horses. He is, in fact, one of the men on whom the title character of “The Horse Whisperer” was based.
His ability to read these animals, to commune with them telepathically (one good old boy rancher calls it “voodoo”), to meld minds so that no sooner does Brannaman think it than the horse responds, would be enough to make him a world-class curiosity.
But as the new documentary “Buck” illustrates, what makes Brannaman truly heroic is not his skill with horses Continue Reading »
Posted in Documentaries | Tagged Buck Brannaman, Cindy Meehl, horses, Robert Redford, The Horse Whisperer | Leave a Comment »
Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks in "Larry Crowne"
“LARRY CROWNE” My rating: C (Opens wide on July 1)
99 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13
“Larry Crowne” is so slight a romantic comedy that it’s hardly even there.
It’s not unpleasant. It has moments of lightweight charm.
But given the powerhouse potential of stars Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks Continue Reading »
Posted in Popcorn movies | Tagged Cedric the Entertainer, George Takei, higher education, Julia Robers, motor scooter, Pam Grier, Rita Wilson, Taranji P. Henson, Tom Hanks | 2 Comments »
“CONAN O’BRIEN CAN’T STOP” My rating: B- (Opening July 1 at the Screenland Crossroads)
89 minutes | MPAA rating: R
It’s said that comedy is born of anger. And you’ll no find a better illustration of that than Conan’s O’Brien’s Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour.
In the wake of his 2010 breakup/betrayal with NBC, the former “Tonight Show” host — who in return for a huge cash settlement agreed not to appear on TV, radio or the Internet for six months — opted to launch a nationwide comedy tour.
It was no small affair: a full band, backup singers/dancers, elaborate props (like a masturbating stuffed panda) and an ever-changing slate of special guests.
And it was all fueled by rage.
In “Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop” the normally affable funnyman Continue Reading »
Posted in Art house fare, Documentaries | Tagged Andy Richter, comedy, Conan O'Brien, Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on TV Tour, NBC | Leave a Comment »
“DELIVER US FROM EVIL” (Available June 28)
This gritty Scandinavian thriller clearly was inspired by Sam Peckinpah’s seminal “Straw Dogs” (which, perhaps not coincidentally, is the subject of an American remake set for September release).
It begins as a sort of dysfunctional family drama. Johannes (Lasse Rimmer) is a well-to-do lawyer who has returned to his small hometown in Jutland’s lowlands. He’s got a sexy wife, a couple of kids and lots of big-city ideas that the brutish locals find amusing and somewhat irritating.
Among these primitives is Johannes’ ne’er-do-well brother Lars (Jens Andersen), an over-the-road trucker who, while fumbling with a cell phone, drives over a local woman. Hiding her body near the highway, Continue Reading »
Posted in New on DVD | Tagged " vigilantism, "Straw Dogs | Leave a Comment »
“ERASING DAVID” (Available June 28)
In this hugely thought-provoking doc from Britain, filmmaker David Bond kisses his child and pregnant wife goodbye and attempts to disappear.
His goal: to elude for one full month a pair of professional investigators he’s hired to track him down.
For anyone who has ever though it might be cool to simply pack it all in and live off the information grid, “Erasing David” will be a sobering reality check. Continue Reading »
Posted in Documentaries, New on DVD | Tagged Big Brother, David Bond, privacy rights, surveillance | Leave a Comment »
“TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON” My rating: C (Opens wide June 29)
153 minutes | Audience rating: PG-13
I’m not going to tell you that Michael Bay has no soul. Only that I’ve never seen evidence of one in any of his films.
The irony, of course, is that by commercial standards Bay is the filmmaker of his generation, able to hits the mass audience’s sweet spot with a fusion of flash, noise, endless f/x and eye-blurring action.
Characterization? Content? Subtext?
Who needs ‘em?
Continue Reading »
Posted in Popcorn movies | Tagged Buzz Aldrin, Josh Duhamel, Michael Bay, Rose Huntington-Whiteley, Shia LaBeouf, Transformers, Tyrese Gibson | 2 Comments »
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