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DAVID FINCHER’S ‘MANK’: ONCE MORE, WITH FEELING

https://youtu.be/aSfX-nrg-lI Mank is a phenomenal piece of cinema, but it is not a very entertaining movie. What David Fincher has achieved is a sweeping parlor trick that satirizes the majesty of Hollywood’s Golden Age, captured at a moment when the industry was clawing its way out of the Great Depression. The film’s production and its…

ANA LILY AMIRPOUR’S ‘RIDE IT OUT’ BELONGS IN A TIME CAPSULE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JaGmaiKRLA During a 2017 interview with Berlinale Talents, 40-year-old writer/director Ana Lily Amirpour (A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, The Bad Batch) described the year after she had graduated from UCLA as disempowering. Amirpour was married at the time (i.e., 2009). She had written a script. She had landed an agent and a manager, both…

SOFIA COPPOLA’S “ON THE ROCKS”: A BREEZY STOP ALONG THE WAY

“You are mine.” These are the opening words of Sofia Coppola’s On The Rocks, delivered as a voiceover from a doting father who is speaking to his daughter (presumably in a flashback). Cut to that same daughter’s wedding reception, the bride and the groom disappearing for a midnight swim in a moonlit pool. The metaphor…

“JURASSIC WORLD” THE SPIELBERGIAN PARALLELS BETWEEN “JURASSIC PARK” & “JAWS”

Assuming you have seen the one-minute Jurassic World trailer that ran during the Super Bowl – and, let’s be honest, who hasn’t? – you know it opens on a clip featuring a five-ton Mosasaurus swallowing a great white shark as if it were a minnow. There is a message here, an overt signal that Universal…

“STILL ALICE” – JULIANNE MOORE AT THE TOP OF HER GAME

“I wish I had cancer.” How’s that for a salvo? If it throws you for a loop, it won’t take long before your mind begins to wonder, “What fresh hell could be more harrowing than that?” The answer, both in life and in Still Alice, is a slow and steady deterioration of the brain, the…

SISSY SPACEK @ 65

The story of Sissy Spacek is a story based on family. It is the story of a poor girl, from Texas, a shy girl, a homecoming queen. It is the story of a teenage brother who died of leukemia; of a grief-stricken sister who ran away to New York. It is the story of two…

“BANKSY DOES NEW YORK” – “BETTER OUT THAN IN,” REVISITED

Banksy … what a prankster. To hear some people tell it, he’s either a genius or a poseur, a messiah or a screw. Banksy’s derivative and he’s decadent. He’s totally unsanctioned, hullabaloo. He’s a lark and a goof, a social satirist and a crock. He’s a solo act; no, part of a collective. He’s a…

“SOME KIND OF SPARK” – A DOC NYC PIC THAT FALLS FAR SHORT OF ITS MARK

Two years ago the documentary Brooklyn Castle very quietly arrived in limited release – a staggered rollout focused on independent theaters in select metropolitan areas around the country. Despite a lack of financing, Katie Dellamaggiore’s documentary would go on to win the hearts and minds of critics, representing – as it did – an apt…

“STONEHEARST ASYLUM” POE GONE WRONG (AGAIN) – FILM REVIEW

Of the 21 short stories included in Simon & Schuster’s original Great Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (1940), 14 have been adapted into full-length motion pictures. Of the seven that have not, three are six pages or less, one has been adapted into a television program, and another has inspired an hour-long musical…

7 ICONIC DIRECTORS + THEIR 7 ICONIC MOVIES

There comes a point in every budding director’s career, usually a few movies in, where the circumstances align to allow for a breakthrough. The backing is there, the level of control is reasonable. The director is young and hungry and vibrant, wholly convinced that he or she has got something to prove. The script is…

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