Author Archive
Buddhist, Political or Patronizing?
Besson’s The Lady vanishes Aung San Suu Kyi (Michelle Yeoh) writhes in emotional pain on the floor of her family home beneath the glowering portrait of her Burmese revolutionist father, having learned that her husband Michael Aris (David Thewlis) has died of cancer following a period of prolonged separation after Suu Kyi’s anguished choice of...
Two Acts of War
SEAL team vs. Korean Clichés Taken as a singular feat of selfless will—and war, we’re reminded, is “a country of will”—Act of Valor serves an oblique purpose as a bracing, unspoken homage to Michael Monsoor, awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously for jumping on a live grenade to spare his fellow Navy SEALs and allied...
Bravery and Mastery
Spielberg’s “lost” treasures Though it’s tempting to dwell upon Steven Spielberg’s superior visual aesthetics—his mellifluous and unstudied reimagining of the Ford and Lean “scene” in War Horse, the extra-dimensional lighting and thrillingly untethered camera of Tintin—it’s the storytelling project that distinguishes both films. A mark of what jazz musician Kenny Werner calls effortless mastery, Spielberg’s...
Dance Cadaverous
Wenders 3-Ds Pina Bausch Framing Wim Wenders’ emotional 3-D tribute to “dance theater” creator Pina Bausch, some of the late choreographer’s most esteemed dancers, young and old, move slowly along a line atop the high horizon line of rolling hills, signing Bausch’s expressions of the seasons passing, over and over. The incanting cortège conjures the...
Method Envy
Cronenberg’s wry toast to headshrinking David Cronenberg’s wry, almost incredulous treatment of Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud and the late 19th-century mind transforms what could be neurotic movie misery into common unhappiness—or perhaps the guilty pleasure of schadenfreude. A Dangerous Method confines its fictional gaze to a remarkable historical confluence of winding intellects, when future shrink...
Playing Footsie: Another remake stumbles
The new Footloose settles for a nearly scene-by-scene narrative retelling and at times a frame-by-frame recreation of the dance sequences from the original. Only the ugly new narrow-mindedness against the South and straw man arguments against the growing menace of Presbyterian totalitarians have been revised to reinforce modern prejudice. Nonetheless, some missing dance moments at...
Invasion of the Cliché Snatchers: Trespass revisits the panic room
A home invasion robbery drama set within a diamond broker’s architectural gem, Trespass is rough-cut paste. Bombing around in a Porsche barking out deals via cellphone, Kyle Miller (Nicolas Cage) has in truth fallen upon a cratered jewel market and is just another “middle man living on credit.” The white mansion with a pool seamlessly...
I Have a Nightmare
The first, unavoidable observation of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial statue compels its rejection as dishonest art: Irrespective of any artistic aim—anywhere along the spectrum from verism to modern abstraction—the resulting work doesn’t represent the man in either body or spirit, neither the color of his skin nor the content of his character. The...
Lapsed Vision
Emilio Estevez seeks The Way Despite the persevering earnestness of filmmaker Emilio Estevez, The Way wanders off a well-trodden path down too many dead ends to find the epiphany it seeks.
Lapsed Vision
Emilio Estevez seeks ‘The Way’ Despite the persevering earnestness of filmmaker Emilio Estevez, The Way wanders off a well-trodden path down too many dead ends to find the epiphany it seeks. Dispirited and dour company among the golf buddies of his southern California suburbia, ophthalmologist Tom (Martin Sheen) undertakes a somber journey to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, France,...
Butch Cassidy’s Last Sundance
Spaniards Mateo Gil and screenwriter Miguel Barros mercifully avoid cornball expert banditry and winky inside jokes that disrespect the genre, a lesson a few dozen American filmmakers could learn.
Henry Jaglom’s Eating
A work of fiction freely intermixing real and written confessions of bourgeois women’s neurotically distorted self-images and food obsessions, Henry Jaglom’s 1990 movie Eating can elicit a feeling of binging and purging at once.
CITYARTS FORUM: Straw Dogs- Stix Nix Prix Flick
In an online exclusive feature, CityArts critics examine Hollywood’s remake obsession and its negative effects on film culture. Armond White reviews Straw Dogs’ art legacy and takes on the review of record. Gregory Solman recalls what makes Peckinpah great that Rod Lurie just doesn’t understand. And John Demetry analyzes the treacheries of Hollywood hackwork. Art...
David V. David
Mamet and Letterman Wage TV War at the Crossroads of 9/11 David Mamet and David Letterman both turned 54 having traversed a similar cultural/temporal landscape when arriving at the post-9/11 crossroads. Letterman veered left, and Mamet moved right. Mamet is a religious man. Letterman, apparently, is not. More to the point, Letterman became a “believer”...
