“Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio,” January 12, 2023 (2022), Netflix. It’s certainly not Walt Disney’s “Pinocchio,” although the cricket, Gepetto, and the little-carved wooden boy who come alive through magical intervention are all there. A carnival-man replaces the con-artist of the earlier film It won this year’s Golden Globe for best animated feature. This stop-motion animation…
Category: Film Reviews
Everything, Everywhere, All the Time
“Everything, Everywhere, All at Once,” January 11, 2023 (2022), DVD. Hang on to your hats for this wonderful, chaotic, breathtaking sci-fi comedy cum family melodrama that merges both genres and dimensions at the same time from writers/directors Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinter (The Daniels). It’s a serious hoot and a challenge to follow because of…
Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence
“Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence,” December 30, 2022 (1983), DVD -Criterion. Based on novel The Seed and the Sower, by Laurens Van Der Post. Bronwen wanted to revisit this Nagisa Oshima (“The Realm of the Senses”) story of a Japanese POW camp in Java during WWII starring Tom Conti, David Bowie, Riuchi Sakamoto, and Takashi Kitano. …
Sybil
“Sybil,” December 26, 2022 (1976), TV miniseries, DVD. An Emmy-winning multi-episode drama and for best actress, this is likely the last of our Newman/Woodward orgy for a while. Joanne Woodward was nominated for Best Actress, but Sally Fields rightly won in what was her first big dramatic role. Of course, Woodward won the Oscar for…
Rachel, Rachel
“Rachel, Rachel,” December 17, 2022 (1968), DVD. Paul Newman directed, and Joanne Woodward starred as Rachel Cameron, a 35-year old unmarried elementary school teacher living with her widowed mother in an apartment above the funeral parlor her father ran. Past and present merge well as we see the creation of this repressed, loveless life through…
Mr. & Mrs. Bridge
“Mr. & Mrs. Bridge,” December 11, 2022 (1990), DVD. Our trip through Newman/Woodward-land continues. Woodward pushed for this production and Merchant/Ivory who produced/directed this period piece about a rigid, self-righteous upper-middle class lawyer, Kansas City lawyer, Walter Bridge (Paul Newman), his very housewifeish wife, India (Joanne Woodward), and their difficulties navigating the times they live…
Hiroshima, Mon Amour
“Hiroshima, Mon Amour,” French, November 26, 2022 (1959), DVD. Another great film I’ve always meant to see. Yeah, I know. I should have seen it years ago. Anyway, Bronwen came back from Japan two weeks ago and decided she wanted to watch this again. She saw it back in 1975 or ’76 at the New…
It Happened One Night
“It Happened One Night,” November 25, 2022 (1934), DVD. Renowned for it’s 5 top Oscars, this Frank Capra rom-com road movie was loosely based on a short story in Cosmopolitan about reporter Peter Warne (Clark Gable) and a runaway spoiled heiress Ellen “Ellie” Andrews’(Claudette Colbert) adventures and misadventures as they bus/hitchhike/and purloin a car to…
Vengeance
“Vengeance,” November 7, 2022, (DVD). B.J. Novak wrote, directs, and stars in this dark comic/drama of a who done it? Novak leads as Ben Monalowitz, a New Yorker writer in the New York bubble of 30-somethings searching for pickups and a career boost that he hopes can come via podcasting. He sees his opportunity on…
Newman, Woodward, Noir and More
Newman, Woodward, Noir and More. (October-November, 2022). Newman, Woodward, noir and more. We’ve been watching older films of late. This has been induced by the 6-part Ethan Hawke documentary “The Last Movie Stars” (HBO) about Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. Very informative and interesting. I learned much from it and really appreciated that look at…
Defiance
“Defiance,” November 3, 2022 (2008), DVD. Based on a true story, Edward Zwick’s direction and screenplay stays close to Nachama Tec’s book of the same name. Filmed in Lithuania. Tuvia, Zus, and Asael Bielski (Daniel Craig, Live Schrieber, and Jaime Bell) are Belarussian Jewish brothers who separately escape the butchery of the SS in 1941….
The Outfit
“The Outfit,” September 30, 2022, Amazon Prime. Leonard (Mark Rylance) is a cutter not a tailor. A Saville Row trained cutter. He produces the finest men’s suits. And, in his little Chicago shop, he makes them for all sorts of people. Chicago is dark and sinister as it often is; and the filming of the…
The Greatest Radio Station in the World
“The Greatest Radio Station in the World,” September 20, 2022, Director’s Cut, on-line. This is a must see for fans of non-commercial, independent radio. I am one of those. I grew up with parents who listened to the John Carroll University station. When I moved to Long Island in 1973, I found this brilliant station. …
Elvis
“Elvis,” September 10, 2022, DVD. Baz Lurhmann co-wrote and directed this Australian-heavy (although Hugh Jackman’s not in it) biopic of The King starring Austin Butler as Elvis and Tom Hanks in a fat-suit and plenty of makeup as carnival barker and entrepreneur Col. Tom Parker. It was filmed on location in Australia at the start…
La Dolce Vita
“La Dolce Vita,” September 5, 2022 (1960), DVD. Yes, I had managed to never see this remarkable opus from Federico Fellini. The film follows several days in the life of Marcello (Marcello Mastroianni) a serious writer turned tabloid hack in a Rome growing more decadent by the day. His is a life lived at night…
The Worst Person in the World
“The Worst Person in the World,” August 20, 2022 (2021), DVD. Renate Reinsve won Best Actress at Cannes for her remarkable performance as Julie in this look at the search for love and identity today. We both really liked this Norwegian story that felt a bit like Bergman’s “Scene’s From a Marriage” combined with Allen’s…
Pussy Riot
“Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer,” August 15, 2022 (2013), DVD, in Russian subtitled. We greatly appreciated this fascinating, raw BBC documentary. It gives us the story of this anarchistic, feminist, pro-LGBTQ punk band and their battles with both the Russian Orthodox Church and Vladimir Putin. It begins with the musical disruption of a service at…
Good Luck to You, Leo Grande
“Good Luck to You, Leo Grande,” July 10, 2022, Hulu, full female nudity, partial male nudity. We both enjoyed and appreciated this look at the complexities of female sexuality in the context of a culture that, despite the ‘sexual revolutions’ of the past 60 years, has not meant sexual fulfillment to many women in heterosexual…
The Eyes of Tammy Faye
“The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” June 10, 2022 (2021), DVD. Jessica Chastain won an Oscar and SAG for best actress for her portrayal of Tammy Faye Bakker. The film dramatizes her marriage to Jim Bakker (a slimy, duplicitous Andrew Garfield) and their rise to and fall from fame and fortune to bankruptcy and prison as…
Parallel Mothers
“Parallel Mothers,” in Spanish, subtitled, May 2, 2022 (2021), DVD. This Pedro Almodovar vehicle could have been a schmaltzy melodrama, but instead he turns it into a remarkably sensitive, thoughtful, and important film. And motherhood is one of his favorite topics. It truly makes the personal political and the political profoundly personal. The magnificent Penelope…
The Quarrel
“The Quarrel,” Canadian, April 21, 2022 (1991), DVD. A friend suggested this one for me as it looks at arguments within traditional Jewish culture and those who choose more secular lives. Its years after World War II. Chiam (R.H. Thompson) is a fully securlarized Russian/Ukrainian borYiddish writer living in New York City. He comes to…
Belfast
“Belfast,” April 14, 2022 (2021), DVD. Kenneth Branagh wrote and directed this award-winning memoir. His Buddy – an excellent child-actor, Jude Hill — is growing up Protestant in a mixed neighborhood in Belfast in 1969 and times are heating up as sectarian gangs riot and rage. Dad’s (Jaime Dornan) off working in England, Mom’s (Caiatriona…
The Name of the Rose
“The Name of the Rose,” April 11, 2022 (1986), DVD. I saw this when it first came out, but hadn’t seen it since. Jean-Jacques (J.J.) Annaud’s reworking of Umberto Eco’s 1980 global bestselling—if not always read—novel is well worth re-watching. William of Baskerville (Sean Connery as a Holmes-like Franciscan friar sleuth) arrives at a Benedictine…
The Andy Warhol Diaries
“The Andy Warhol Diaries,” Week of April 1-7, 2022, Netflix, 6 parts, documentary. A brief cautionary note. I’m a very big fan of Warhol’s work, so I’m aware of my biases on this one. We both really appreciated and were really glad we watched this limited series. Directed by Andrew Ross and based on his…
West Side Story
“West Side Story,” April 4, 2022 (2021), DVD. Directed by Stephen Spielberg with a screenplay by Tony Kushner, Bronwen and I both liked and were quite moved by this remake of the Bernstein and Sondheim classic. I grew up with the 1957 original Broadway cast recording on my parent’s faux stereo (three feet of separation…