Village Vidiot

The mystery is, why did everyone like this silly bit of fluff so much. Even as a comedy, this Mike Myers conceit is overly long, thin, rather boring, and dumb as a parody/homage to 1960s/70s James Bond, secret agent, Man from UNCLE movies and tv shows. Names like Alotta Fagina mix with a Dr Evil…

The legacy of imperial policy, in this case settling Estonians in Georgia over a century ago, helps set up this antiwar story of enemies and neutrals coming together to understand one another. Ivo is a rural carpenter/farmer in an Estonian village in Georgia. Estonians had been settled there under the Czar. Now there are only…

The latest from the Coen Brothers, this dark and frustrating look at the folk scene in 1961/62, and yes, it’s that precisely dated, crafts an opportunistic, unpleasant, frequently narcissistic, often cruel if true-to-the-music semi-Dave Van Ronk alter-ego (Llewyn Davis, acted by Oscar Issac—who plays his own guitar and sings) with nice work by Justin Timberlake,…

The aliens have landed and linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is called upon to try to figure out how to communicate with them. She works along with physicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) and the US military as fronted by Forest Whittaker as Col Weber (who I usually really like but who for some reason adopts…

The 2004 sequel to the 1995 “Before Sunrise” about a young American man (Ethan Hawke) and French woman (Juliette Delpy) who meet in Vienna and spend one long day and night together before she has to leave. He’s now a successful author on a book took in Paris who’s talking about his novel about that…

Tense from the get-go, this Oscar-winning, high energy Katherine Bigelow action flick about a bomb/IED disposal unit in Iraq starts at the letter K in this Mesopotamian alphabet. There is no “why?” Only what’s there at that moment for the men of this 3-person team in the war’s deadliest job. Very well played, written (well,…

Tense and often painful story of a pilot, Whip Whitaker (very well-played by Denzel Washington-Oscar nomination), with some major substance abuse problems who saves the vast majority of his flight in a terrible crash but must nonetheless answer questions about his ‘condition’. Excellent supporting work from John Goodman (his drug buddy), Don Cheadle (the union…

Technologically sophisticated digital tracking joined to animation brings this children’s tale about a young boy and other kids who take a ride on the express on Christmas Eve. Believing is what it’s all about. Tom Hanks in several interesting roles and Steve Tyler of Aerosmith continues his film cameo run. Interesting as a technical piece,…

Team botanist Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is inadvertently stranded on Mars when, thinking him dead, his team makes an emergency evacuation. He must manage to renew contact with earth, stay alive, and manage an escape. This Ridley Scott film is the best sort of science fiction, as it’s very realistic fiction about science, not horrible…

Sylvester Stallone acts and does a good job as the slob cop who nonetheless has some scruples. Set up in a small NJ town to be a fake cop by cop-boss Harvey Keitel, Sly comes through in the end and is standup along with Robert DeNiro as the NYPD-DIA Lt. A real guy film, with…

Superb Chinese film from Zhang Yimou about a 13-year old substitute school teacher in a poor rural Chinese village. When one of her students leaves school and goes to the city to earn money to pay his family debts, she follows him in and hunts him down. The poverty is palpable, the emotion real, the…

Strangely, neither Bronwen nor I was impressed with this instant cult classic about some crook wannabes. Just sort of flat and uninvolving. Can’t say more because, tellingly, I barely remember it

Strangely dispassionate film about a woman’s passionate relationship to sexuality and literature. Creative multi-screen use of the film (a bit hard to see on tv but it would work well in the theater). About a Japanese woman’s attempt to revenge her father and create her own pillow book. I just can’t deal with director Peter…

Strange and occasionally funny piece about the end of disco as a scene built around Studio 54. Some horrid characters, vapid, and generally uninteresting yuppie-types, they are built out of the world this director first chronicled in “Metropolitan” and “Barcelona”. Pathetic lives lived by these successful folk, they make you feel ok about your own…

Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner’s dramatization of the passage of the 13th Amendment. Daniel Day Lewis is profoundly patient/impatient, moderate/progressive, pragmatic/idealistic and accommodating/strong-willed as Abe, while Tommy Lee Jones (Thaddeus Stephens), Sally Field (Mary Todd Lincoln), James Spader (Theodore Bilbo) have a grand time with their roles and David Straitharn (Edwin Stanton) plays it low…

Steve Coogan goes on a junket reviewing restaurants in the Lake District. Instead of his girlfriend, Misha, who’s off in the US, he travels with Rob Bryden, an actor and radio personality, an old acquaintance if not a good friend Their quirky and often very funny interactions highlight this feature from IFC and speak pointedly…

Spalding Gray was a storyteller; this is Steven Soderbergh’s thoughtful reconstruction of Spalding Gray’s life and self. It is a non-narrative, low-key, documentary bio that looks at his stage life, his family background, and his creation of a self built around theater and his semi-autobiographical, candid, sometimes outrageous, fictionalized non-fiction monologues. These were, Gray came…

Sort of interesting little French film about a woman whose cat gets lost while she’s away on vacation. Her search for her cat corresponds to her searching for a life. The neighborhood provides what the glam world of models and makeup doesn’t. An ok, and sometimes funny film. It is very French and sometimes slow…

Sometimes funny, sometimes just sort of dumb Steve Martin-written and acted comedy about an nth -rate director making a film starring Eddie Murphy (sometimes great!) as Kurt Ramsey, a psycho action star. He doesn’t know he’s in the film. The really funny stuff involves “Mind Head” (Scientology) a bogus cult that dominates LA. That stuff…

Sometimes funny Woody Allen musical about the lives and loves of the rich, white, liberal New Yorkers he hangs out with. A couple of wonderful musical comedy numbers about love done to old standards, but a real piece of fluff all around. As usual, nice work by Alan Alda and Goldie Hawn. One funny aspect…

Sometimes funny film about a gay teacher, Kevin Kline, coming out to the community and himself even while he is about to get married. Overrated comedy with a few very nice touches as the community comes to support him

So yes, it was an homage to Hollywood musicals and movies past, and yes it was light, and yes, it was ‘clean,’ and yes everyone was young and beautiful, and yes it starred Ryan Gosling as Sebastian, the brilliant white jazz pianist committed to saving the art form, and yes it starred Emma Stone as…

So sue us, we all liked this silly Will Farrell vehicle about a human raised by the elves at the North Pole. It’s fun to watch, and dumb in the extreme. Good for all ages. Interestingly, the only ones who didn’t work in the movie (for me at least) were James Caan as Farrell’s biological…

Smart, visually pleasing adaptation of the O Wilde classic, it has great lines, but is fundamentally an empty look at empty people for whom form and money are everything. Funny, but not deep in any way. Two men who have fallen for two women who love the name Ernest. Obviously, it’s more important to be…

Slow, beautiful Chinese movie that looks at Chinese gangster culture and family in the 1930s as a metaphor about Chinese life and corruption today. Could be better, but worth seeing Subtitled