6 October 2017. A great deal of FINE cinema coming at you this week – get ready for a film marathon! VICTORIA AND ABDUL (Confident Royal) *** Here’s a tender biopic on Queen Victoria’s last years, made sweet by a young, charming Indian clerk. Stephen Frears, of such excellent and varied films as “My Beautiful […]
FILM: The young Karl Marx
29 September 2017. THE YOUNG KARL MARX **** (vo German, French, English) Haitian director Raoul Peck knows how to make films that move you and shake you to the core. As a political militant, he makes films about history, humanity and injustices that cause you to reflect and feel the larger truths with your gut, […]
FILM: LOVELESS – The present state of Russian society brilliantly exposed
22 September 2017. FAUTE D’AMOUR (NELYUBOV /LOVELESS) **** (vo Russian) The present state of Russian society is brilliantly exposed in this latest Andrey Zvyagintsev film, a grim but powerfully constructed tale of a destructive couple in the midst of a divorce who have no use for their poor 12-year old son. The mother is a […]
FILM: Insyriated – a film that places you in the middle of the Syrian tragedy
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 […]
