The two most interesting moments in The Phoenician Scheme—the latest from director Wes Anderson—come at the beginning and end of the movie. As for what happens in between, we’ll get there. By the beginning, I don’t mean the actual opening … Continue reading THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME
We’ve been here before. Sure, it seems worse, and some of the problems we’re facing are novel, but you don’t have to look hard to find analogs and parallels from the past. As Mark Twain put it: “History doesn’t repeat … Continue reading Distress Flares: Cinematic Survival Guide, Vol. 1
What do you even say about a movie like Kinds of Kindness? Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, the film is composed of three stories, each involving a handful of characters, each played by the same handful of actors. The stories don’t … Continue reading KINDS OF KINDNESS
Golden Era Hollywood screenwriter Frank S. Nugent once described story as a disturbance of the status quo: “Something happens to upset it; the disturbance is the story; and the story ends when another status quo is attained.” The Boy and … Continue reading THE BOY AND THE HERON (君たちはどう生きるか)
The play’s the thing, and for Conrad Earp (Edward Norton), a Tennessee Williams-type with a predilection for Tom of Finland cowboy art, his new play is sure to be the one that wakes the audience up. Or puts them to … Continue reading ASTEROID CITY
Fifteen-year-old Olga (Anastasiia Budiashkina) isn’t sure where she belongs. Her mother is a Ukrainian journalist covering the unrest and revolution building in Kyiv. The year is 2013, and things are getting testy in the streets and harder for Olga to … Continue reading OLGA and the 2022 Boulder Environmental / Nature / Outdoors Film Festival
There’s a lot about The Northman that is ancient and just as much that’s mythic. It’s Shakespearean in its bones, but touches of Confucius, Sophocles and Wolfram von Eschenbach are never far from reach. There’s even a surprising tribute to Disney’s The Lion … Continue reading THE NORTHMAN
Geeks are not found; they are made. This is the lesson Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper), a drifter in 1940s America, learns first hand at the Ten-in-One traveling carnival. Ten-in-One is a carnival like any other: A strong man, a contortionist, … Continue reading NIGHTMARE ALLEY
It’s the story of the man who used to be a dog meeting a dog who used to be a boy. And it’s set in a mental institution built in the middle of the Israeli desert of Negev. All the … Continue reading ADAM RESURRECTED
Michael J. Cinema 
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