Friday, August 30, 2013

Passion (2013) A Film by Brian De Palma


I loved Brian De Palma's new film Passion with, well, a passion. Trafficking in the deliberately labyrinthine plot mechanics and metatextual layers of films like Mulholland Drive and Keyhole, with an additional jolt of De Palma's own absurdist humor, the movie's right up my alley, or at least one of my alleys. I tried to unravel some of its complexity for In Review Online here.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

2046 (2004) A Film by Wong Kar-Wai

Over at In Review Online, Kenji Fujishima has rallied together a "Directrospective" on the films of Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar-Wai. The series has been covering, chronologically, one Wong feature per day since August 13th, all leading up to the American release of his long-awaited martial arts epic The Grandmaster. Today, I weighed in on 2046, Wong's brilliant oddball of a "sequel" to In the Mood for Love (2000). It's my first perfect four star review for the site, which gives you a quick sense of how deeply this film affects me. Be sure to check out the other astute entries in the series as well!

Thursday, August 15, 2013

This is Martin Bonner (2013) A Film by Chad Hartigan


Best of the year finalist alert: Chad Hartigan's This is Martin Bonner takes a premise that seems like sentimental Sundance-bait and turns it into a patient, sensitive meditation on companionship, renewal, and the arduous task of reconciling's one's past and present. What's more, the film's effulgent vision of Reno, Nevada is one of the loveliest things you'll see all year. My enthusiastic full review is up now at In Review Online.

Friday, August 9, 2013

Prince Avalanche (2013) A Film by David Gordon Green

David Gordon Green's got a new film coming out, but it's not quite the stoned, brainless bromantic comedy he's been churning out over the past few years, nor is it the pastoral melodrama that launched his career – instead, it's a rather noxious synthesis of the two (read: a pretty bad idea). Two weeks removed from watching Prince Avalanche and I almost feel I went too easy on it; the movie's construction is so lazy and its sad-sack riffing (between Emile Hirsch and Paul Rudd, a cute pairing) so uninspired that it has basically already evaporated from my mind. Read my full review here.