Norman Lloyd, 90, is in only three scenes in In Her Shoes and is on-screen maybe seven or eight minutes, but his performance is one of the most poignant notes in a film that’s got more than a few of them. It’s not one of those burn-through-the-screen performances (along the lines of, say, Beatrice Straight’s … Read more
Master Builder Sydney Pollack’s Sketches of Frank Gehry , which I caught yesterday at a public screening at the historic Elgin theatre, is a stirring, hugely likable portrait of the most daring and innovative architect of our time. As corny as this sounds, Sketches left me with a more vivid feeling of celebration and with … Read more
Gilbert Stood Tall There are two things you need to know about Penn Gillette and Paul Provenza’s The Aristocrats (ThinkFilm, 7.29 limited). One, it’s quite funny but not in the usual way — it makes you laugh and also say at the same time, “Am I really laughing at this?” And two, you need to … Read more
Best Batman Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins (Warner Bros., 6.15) is the smartest and most adult-minded superhero film Hollywood has ever made. For the first time ever, a major studio has made a comic-book movie that plays it fairly straight and grown up without letting the usual downmarket distractions run the show. Batman Begins is somewhere … Read more
Rednecks Crash (Lion’s Gate, 5.6) is worth your attention and respect. It’s one of those films that has the Big Picture on its mind. It isn’t preachy or assaultive (not to my mind anyway), but it damn sure swings for the fences. Directed and co-written by Paul Haggis (who also adapted Million Dollar Baby), it’s … Read more
There are at least three ways to have a depressing time at the movies, and one is worth the grief. You can sit through something shoddy, inept, sub-standard, and do everything you can to flush it out of your system when it’s over. You can also sit through a smooth, studio-funded, well-made enterprise that everyone’s … Read more
I came to chortle at Inside Deep Throat and, to be honest, maybe feel a tiny bit excited by it…but I came away feeling leveled-out, sobered-up, un-randy. Sobered up doesn’t mean bummed, which is how I pretty much felt after seeing Deep Throat itself. It was such a shitty movie…so cheesy, stupid, clueless. But it … Read more
Clint’s Furlough After directing films for no other studio but Warner Bros. for 28 years straight (i.e., except for Columbia’s Absolute Power), Clint Eastwood will briefly jump ship when he makes his next movie — a time-shifting father-son World War II flick called Flags of Our Fathers — for DreamWorks this summer. The film will … Read more
Vega Obliqua There’s always a faint air of suppression when a successful European actress turns up in a Hollywood film. If the actress is known on her native soil for being soulful, carnal, cerebral or feisty, she always seems a bit congealed and worked over after submitting to the big American studio machine. Not misunderstood … Read more