We weren’t expecting a New York screening of a film about a Chinese dancer to be a heavily Australian event, but that’s what Monday night’s special showing of Mao’s Last Dancer at the Crosby Street Hotel was-its director, Bruce Beresford, is an Aussie, and the screening was presented by Australian Consul General Phillip Scanlan. The Read More
Where the Wild Things Are
Running time 100 minutes
Written by Dave Eggers and Spike Jonze
Directed by Spike Jonze
Starring Max Records, Catherine Keener, James Gandolfini, Lauren Ambrose, Paul Dano, Catherine O’Hara, Forest Whitaker, Chris Cooper
I’m the first to admit that I went into Where the Wild Things Are with Read More
The Soloist
Running Time 109 minutes
Written by Susannah Grant
Directed by Joe Wright
Starring Robert Downey Jr., Jamie Foxx, Catherine Keener, Lisagay Hamilton
Joe Wright’s The Soloist, from the screenplay by Susannah Grant, is based on the book The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music, by Steve Read More
How much worse can things get for journalists?
Newspapers and magazines are closing; the ones that remain grow thinner by the week as if somehow cursed; freelance budgets are being slashed and staffers accustomed to taking it easy are being forced to write like their livelihoods depend on it. (Hint: They do.) The only Read More
Paul McGuigan’s Lucky Number Slevin, from a screenplay by Jason Smilovic, masterfully manages to materialize as a fast-talking play on words, plots and fatally mistaken identities, with acknowledged debts to Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (1959) and the James Bond series, and an unacknowledged debt to the convulsively trick-and-corpse-laden cinema of Quentin Tarantino. The point Read More
Paul McGuigan’s Lucky Number Slevin, from a screenplay by Jason Smilovic, masterfully manages to materialize as a fast-talking play on words, plots and fatally mistaken identities, with acknowledged debts to Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (1959) and the James Bond series, and an unacknowledged debt to the convulsively trick-and-corpse-laden cinema of Quentin Tarantino. The point Read More
You are no doubt familiar with John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance , starring John Wayne and James Stewart. The 1962 movie has the most famous line in the Ford oeuvre : “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” It’s a great line, and it’s something that happens all the time, particularly Read More
Robin Williams fans have seen all the faces and heard all the voices before, but rarely have so many skills combined to forge one creepy, unforgettable character with such uncharacteristic subtlety. In the chilling One Hour Photo , a psychological thriller remarkable for its understated lighting and camerawork, and for its willingness to let the Read More
Nicole Holofcener’s Lovely and Amazing , from her own screenplay, jumps to the head of the class of women’s films that manage to avoid the ghetto of sentimental chick-flicks by treating female follies with a satirical style. Ms. Holofcener’s acclaimed first film, Walking and Talking (1996), with Catherine Keener and Anne Heche, had a sharper Read More
