Tag: Paul Dano

Film Festival, Reviews

DFF Review — WILDLIFE

Michael J. Casey

Wildlife’s signature image (seen below) is of a husband and wife pensively looking at each other across an empty chair. Momentarily, their only child will occupy that chair, but his presence will not unite them. Instead, it will only amplify the gulf between the two. Set in 1960 Montana, Wildlife finds this suburban family caught in an existential crisis. Jerry (Jake Gyllenhaal) has been terminated from his position at the local country club. The officially cause: “overstepping his boundaries with the clients,” which Jerry interprets as being too friendly — he was actually gambling with the golfers. Emasculated, Jerry quietly … Continue reading DFF Review — WILDLIFE

Movie Beat

Movie Beat – 10.18.13

Michael J. Casey

2 Jacks – A modern and comic spin on a classic Leo Tolstoy story, “Two Hussars” set in Los Angeles. The Jacks are both movie directors, with the son following in the father’s footsteps whether he likes it or not. It’s a cutthroat business, this movie business, and it takes a cutthroat individual to make it happen. Danny Huston plays Jack Sr., Jack Huston is Jack Jr., Sienna Miller and Jacqueline Bisset play the girl, and Billy Zane and Rosie Fellner add to the cast. Bernard Rose directed and Breaking Glass Pictures gives this one a limited release.   12 … Continue reading Movie Beat – 10.18.13

Movie Beat

Movie Beat – 09.20.13

Michael J. Casey

After Tiller – Since the Supreme Court legalized abortions in 1973, eight abortion clinic workers have been murdered. Dr. George Tiller of Wichita, KS was the most recent, and one of the most controversial considering that he openly practiced third-trimester abortions. This is a heavily debated political issue, but this documentary is not interested in weighing this side versus that side, it wants to answer basic questions: Why does the mother decide that they cannot go through with the birth this late in the game? Why do these clinic workers, who are constantly in danger, continue to do the work … Continue reading Movie Beat – 09.20.13

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LOOPER

Michael J. Casey

Looper is writer/director Rian Johnson’s third film and his second teaming with actor Joseph-Gordon Levitt. It might also be his most successful. Johnson is a genre director, or at the very least, a student of genre and tries his best to recreate it with his own stamp. Brick (2005) was film noir set in high school, The Brother’s Bloom (2008) a con man film. Looper is science fiction, but doesn’t waste too much time with science. Looper’s present time is 2044. Thirty years in the future, time travel will be invented and then immediately outlawed. Only a crime syndicate has … Continue reading LOOPER