15 September 2017. INSYRIATED (UNE FAMILLE SYRIENNE) **** (vo Arab, English, French) A large, comfortable, well-decorated bourgeois apartment. A decent, obviously well-educated family with a mother, a younger woman with her husband and their baby, a few teenagers, a grandfather, and a young maid. But they seem tense and on edge. Terrible things are happening […]
FILM: Rules don’t apply – Back to the 50s and Howard Hughes
8 September 2017. RULES DON’T APPLY **1/2 Warren Beatty is back with a genteel, retro, romantic tale based around the late life of Howard Hughes. He not only directs this colorful melodrama but also plays the role of Hughes with gusto, humor and tenderness. Though I am not so sure about the correlation between Beatty’s […]
FILM: A French tale about an antisocial fellow and an Indian refugee
1 September 2017. 7 JOURS PAS PLUS (An Indian Tale) ***1/2 (vo French) There are films that remain in your heart, like “The Shop Around the Corner”, “Bagdad Café” or “The Station Agent”. You recall them and an instant smile comes across your face. This French tale, about an antisocial fellow who owns a hardware […]
FILM: The Beguiled – 4 Stars
25 August 2017. THE BEGUILED (Les Proies) **** Sofia Coppola won Best Director for this film at the Cannes film festival and deserved it fully. From the very first shots of dark, moss-covered trees in the woods near a girls’ school in Virginia during the Civil War, she sets the tone of the South – its […]
FILM: The Party – Woody Allen a la Sally Potter
18 August 2017. THE PARTY ***1/2 Sally Potter has saved the day for those craving a new Woody Allen film, which has sadly not appeared yet this year. The credits are similar – simple black & white letters, and the film, also in black & white, written and directed by Potter, is a stark story about […]
FILM: Un vent de liberté – an Iranian woman fights for her liberty
4 August 2017. UN VENT DE LIBERTÉ (INVERSION) ***1/2 (vo Farsi) Niloofar, a young, attractive woman in her mid-thirties, never married, lives with her elderly mother in Tehran. She has a flourishing clothing business and a budding romance going on. There is also a brother and his family living near by, and a sister who is […]
FILM: Two films to avoid
28 July 2017. Sorry, but this is not a great week for new films. Just letting you know, so you can save time and money. VALERIAN AND THE CITY OF A THOUSAND PLANETS *1/2 It hurts me to give such a low rating to a film by Luc Besson, as I have greatly admired his […]
FILM: Dunkirk – 4 stars!
21 July 2017. DUNKIRK **** It’s May 1940 and the British troops are cornered on the beaches of Dunkirk in France. The Germans are fast advancing so the men need to be evacuated back to England. From the first moments of this latest Christopher Nolan epic you are with the soldiers, shaking in their boots […]
FILM: Urban photography goes on tour in France
7 July 2017. Two fine French films this week – the AC’d cinemas will cool you down! VISAGE, VILLAGE **** (vo French) This is a magical film that is based on reality. Magical, because it is engined by the amazing photo van of JR, who is an urban photographer; and realistic, because it’s Agnès Varda’s […]
FILM: Be sure to avoid these films
23 June 2017. There’s usually the good news and the bad news – unfortunately this week’s big releases are only bad news. Two films that you should waste neither your time nor money on. Sorry, but that’s what happens to movies in the summer – they release the mindless blockbusters. Maybe so we get a chance […]
