Screen Daily‘s Fionnuala Halligan (“[The] hopelessness will make The Road hard going for general audiences”), The Times Online‘s Wendy Ide (“Hillcoat’s vision is forthright and brutal”), and In Contention‘s Kris Tapley (“a bleak residue of style in the shadow of potential substance”) were yes/no/mixed on the Weinstein Co. release, contrasting with yesterday’s flat-out pan by … Read more
“The March employment numbers, out this morning, are bleak: 8.5 percent of Americans officially unemployed, 663,000 more jobs lost. But if you include people who are out of work and have given up trying to find a job, the real unemployment rate is 9 percent. And if you include people working part time who’d rather … Read more
Marlon Brando out-gunning Karl Malden at the end of One-Eyed Jacks is, by my yardstick, the second most satisfying drilling of a bad guy in the history of westerns. (The most satisfying is still Alan Ladd pulling faster than Jack Palance in Shane, and the third most satisfying is Kevin Costner and Robert Duvall ‘s … Read more
Here’s a 39-minute portion of yesterday’s conversation with Children of Men director-cowriter Alfonso Cuaron. A lot of it won’t add up for those who haven’t seen the film, but Cuaron’s obvious intelligence and his very precise choice of words deliver a kind of contact high if you listen for a few minutes. That and his … Read more
One look at this shot from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Warner Bros., 7.13.07) and it’s obvious that Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson have reached full biological maturity. They’re contractually obliged, of course, to portray “Harry” and “Hermione” in the movie, but given the formulaic rigidity and corporate salivation behind this franchise, … Read more
Rally Round If a movie is going to try and tell the truth about a real event, I believe it should stick as closely as possible to what is actually known, and if certain things about this event aren’t crystal clear then that should be acknowledged and somehow worked into the film. With this theory … Read more
Sweet Bird of Youth It’s not so much how the 23 year-old Marlon Brando looked, although this is fascin- ating in itself. It’s more the metaphor of a life not yet blemished or sullied…an aura of freshness, vitality, raw presence. These are stills from a screen test Brando made in 1947 for a planned film … Read more
Switcheroo Like old habits, movie titles you’ve gotten used to can die hard. Even relatively recent ones, like Universal’s Flight 93, the Paul Greengrass 9/11 thriller that’s opening on Friday, 4.28. Or the former Flight 93, I should say. The old-shoe, boilerplate-sounding Flight 93 of yore…a label I was totally down with. I was so … Read more
Regarding Violence If you’ve seen David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence, you know it’s a philoso- phical double-dealer, and this is what makes it a complex, cut-above film. It’s not just saying violence is a kind of terrible virus — it’s also saying it has a way of turning us on. When Jack (Ashton Holmes), … Read more
Here They Come… That Vince Vaughn profile in the current Newsweek doesn’t lie. His performance as a motor-mouthed, totally scheming hound in Wedding Crashers — a very sharp, at times inspired comic romp — is so hilarious at times that it feels off the earth. I was saying to myself during last night’s press screening, … Read more
The Goonies It’s time once again to respond to the salutations of those New York secular know-nothings, the National Board of Review…even though they make calls every so often that I agree with. Like this morning’s decision to give their Best Director award to Collateral‘s Michael Mann…yes! The NBR announced their 2004 movie awards around … Read more