There’s a current movement in German cinema. I’m not sure
if it’s acquired a catchy name yet. “The Berlin School” is the closest I can
find, but that’s not descriptive in the way that “film noir, “French New Wave,”
or “Italian neo-realism” were. From my own observations it’s something like
neo-German historical realism. But that’s a little clunky. At any rate, the
movies, which tend to focus on post-war Germany or Communist Bloc East Germany,
have been making their way stateside, illuminating the ways in which a new
generation of German filmmakers and their audiences are responding to the
important historical markers that shaped Gemany and its people today.
A blog mostly dedicated to cinema (including both new and old film reviews; commentary; and as the URL suggests - movie lists, although it has been lacking in this area to be honest), but on occasion touching on other areas of personal interest to me.
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
Saturday, August 22, 2015
Irrational Man Movie Review: Woody Allen's 45th Feature
Correction 10 August 2016 - I originally labeled this as Allen's 50th feature. I think I pulled that number from a crude count of his IMDb credits which include TV work and one of the three vignettes in New York Stories. This was actually his 45th theatrically released feature film as a director, including What's Up, Tiger Lily?
Abe and Jill accidentally overhear a troubling story in a diner. |
I’ve thought Woody Allen was washed up and done as a
filmmaker for almost twenty years, but then every now and then he throws a
curve ball of Vicky
Christina Barcelona or Midnight
in Paris, so I’m not about to make any big pronouncements, but Irrational Man is one that makes me
desperately hope he doesn’t close out his career now lest the stink linger
forever. That’s not really fair, I guess. No matter how bad an artist’s
latter-day sins might be, the great stuff will always maintain a redemptive
quality. Just look at Stevie Wonder.
Sunday, August 16, 2015
Blackhat Movie Review
I have found myself over the years consistently
enthralled by Michael Mann’s movies. He creates stories of men entirely
dedicated to their professions, seemingly without limits. Al Pacino and Robert
De Niro faced off as detective and thief, two men who would stop at nothing
(including the loss of a relationship) in completing the mission in Heat. Daniel Day-Lewis was a
frontiersman trying to save the woman he loved in The Last of the Mohicans. Tom Cruise was a fiercely professional
hitman toying with Jamie Foxx’s cab driver in Collateral. And Foxx and Colin Farrell lived the lives of
undercover narcotics detectives in Miami
Vice. Mann sets these stories amid the allure of gorgeous
cinematography, often making well-known cities look like brand new tailored
playgrounds for men with fast cars and guns, whether it’s L.A., Miami, or Hong
Kong in his latest, Blackhat.
Saturday, August 15, 2015
Ex Machina Movie Review
It’s worth admiring a movie that attempts to tell a story
of big ideas and deal with philosophical challenges, even if the execution
isn’t what one might consider perfect. If there’s at least a modicum of kill
and effort put into the craft of the storytelling and filmmaking, any missteps
are easy to gloss over. Alex Garand’s Ex
Machina, a science-fiction thriller takes the issue of artificial
intelligence and cuts to the core of meaning behind consciousness and, by
extension, humanity.
Saturday, August 1, 2015
Kingsman: The Secret Service Movie Review
I continue to fall victim to these early-in-the-year releases
that get good reviews, forgetting every year that for the most part, these films
are not very good. It’s just that critics are desperate to grasp at something
remotely interesting in the early months on the calendar. Kingsman: The Secret Service is one of these movies. It’s all flash
and panache, giving the illusion of something stylish and innovative. This is
Matthew Vaughn’s second film adapted from a Mark Millar comic. Kick
Ass was the first and, truth be told, violence is treated equally in
both films, which tells me that Millar and Vaughn see no difference between
violence committed by and against a twelve-year old girl and English gentlemen.
Wild Tales Movie Review (Relatos salvajes)
Damián Szifrón’s Wild
Tales is a package film comprised of six short films united by the common
theme of human nature’s propensity to resort to animal instincts of violence
and moral turpitude at the slightest hint of transgression. The original
Spanish title of this Argentine film (which was nominated for the Foreign
Language Film Oscar this year) is Relatos
salvajes which is more aptly translated as “Savage Tales.” These six
stories are not just wild, as in a little crazy and beyond the pale. They are
savage and occasionally brutal in the way wild animals have no regard for the
violence they inflict on each other.
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