Whatever happened to Terrence Malick‘s Knight of Cups? It was screened and, it has to be said, not ecstatically reviewed at last February’s Berlinale, and…well, I haven’t felt anything since. No buzz, no anticipation, no sound of humming engines…zip. What’s to say, right? Another ethereal, rhapsodic dream poem from Mr. Wackadoodle. The distributor is Broad … Read more
“Far more at ease in Tehran than England, Gertude Lowthian Bell (Nicole Kidman) allows herself to be politely seduced by embassy secretary Henry Cadogan (James Franco, looking tired but charming, and acting almost entirely with his eyebrows). Their courtship is the stuff of Merchant Ivory movies, complete with scenic marriage proposal and an old Macedonian … Read more
At last February’s Berlinale I caught Yann Demange‘s urgent, pulse-pounding ’71, and then promptly reviewed it. A bit later Roadside acquired ’71 but decided to hold it until early ’15, apparently hoping that star Jack O’Connell‘s drawing power would surge after the December ’14 release of Angelina Jolie‘s Unbroken, in which he played the late … Read more
It’s obvious that Jack Pettibone Riccobono‘s The Seventh Fire, a doc about to screen at the Berlinale, is a cut above. Boilerplate: “A portrait of gang life in rural Minnesota as seen through the eyes of two Native American gangsters — a veteran bad guy named Rob Brown and a 17 year-old up-and-comer named Kevin.” … Read more
The first screening of Terrence Malick‘s Knight of Cups, apparently another “stream-of-consciousness”, tossing-high-the-lettuce-leaves experience with a dessicated Hollywood slant, will happen at the Berlinale this Sunday at 7 pm, or 10 am Los Angeles time. The first tweets should begin to circulate in the early afternoon. Knight of Cups is a kind of time-capsule film … Read more
A little less than five months ago, or more precisely between 9.8 and 9.13, I was in a levitational state over Paul Dano‘s performance as the young Brian Wilson in Bill Pohlad‘s Love & Mercy. I was certain I’d seen one of the best lead-actor performances of 2014 — hands down, no question — and … Read more
Terrence Malick‘s Knight of Cups appears to be some kind of riff on La Dolce Vita or 8 1/2 or something along those lines. The Christian Bale character is some kind of louche Hollywood guy with too much dough, too many choices, too many women, not a lot of discipline…adrift in corruption, plagued by misgivings. … Read more
Is it worth it to fly to the Berlinale in February and stay at some Airb&b pad for four or five days and shell out at least $2500 so I can be among the first to see and review Terrence Malick‘s Knight of Cups? I think not. You never know with Malick these days. Will … Read more
In a recent Conde Nast Traveller piece called “13 Coolest Movie Theatres Around the World,” Munich’s Filmtheater Sendlinger Tor gets its proper due. I fell in love with what looked like a hand-painted marquee during a walking tour of Munich that journalist Thomas Schultze (of the Munich-based G + J Media Entertainment) treated me to … Read more
Condolences to the family and friends of the late Louis Zamperini, the former Olympic athlete and World War II survivor of a Pacific Ocean plane crash and Japanese prisoner-of-war camp who went to become an inspirational speaker and lived to the ripe old age of 97. Ditto his legions of admirers. Zamperini passed yesterday in … Read more
I’ve been game to see Hossein Amimi‘s The Two Faces of January (Magnolia, 10.3) since the premiere at last February’s Berlinale, which I missed due to being in Berlin for only four days and change. I finally saw it the night before last at the Los Angeles Film Festival, and I’m definitely filing it under … Read more
In the following order, the Best 2014 Films That I’ve Seen Thus Far (regardless of forthcoming or undetermined release dates for those seen at Sundance, Berlin and Cannes) are as follows: 1. Andrey Zvyagintsev‘s Leviathan (hands down the best film I saw in Cannes and an almost certain contender for the 2014 Best Foreign Language … Read more