Documentaries are, generally speaking, a favorite genre for filmgoers who are tired of high drama, explosions, improbable plots and one-dimensional characters. The form promises that what you see will be just what happened. Just the facts …Read More
Read More
On Tuesday night, we will be discussing Son of Saul, a film about a Jew who is being forced to assist the Nazis at Auschwitz. He’s one of a group of prisoners known as Sonderkommandos, and they know that they will eventually share the fate of those whose bodies they are disposing of.Read More
Read More
The lives of actors are idiosyncratic things, and you just never know when (or if) a big break is going to come along. It happened to Michael Keaton with his breakout role in Birdman. And if Caddyshack hadn’t come along, Rodney Dangerfield would never have gotten a chance to make Easy Money and Back to School. (And we all know what a loss that would have been.)Read More
Read More
Documentary movie maker Michael Moore is a mess. He looks like an unmade bed, except when he dresses up, and then he looks like the pillow-man that escaping convicts leave in their cells to fool the guards. His films are also frequently a mess. But when a director has Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine (which won the 2003 Oscar for Best Documentary) among his credits, it makes sense to pay attention when a new film of his appears.Read More
Read More
So, Spike Lee.
Spike Lee is a filmmaker who loves to put a burr under people’s saddle. From She’s Gotta Have It in 1986 through Do the Right Thing in 1989 (arguably his masterpiece, at least in terms of controversy) to Malcolm X in 1992 and Bamboozled in 2000, Lee produced a string of accomplished films on black themes that got crossways with lots of people.Read More
Read More
While it’s true that January has thrown a bit of snow into the mix, many New Englanders are still a little uneasy at the relative tolerability of winter thus far. There’s a suspicion that we’re just being toyed with, and that the Killer January Storm is still in Winter’s pocket, just waiting to be thrown at us.Read More
Read More
Anyone who has ever recommended a movie to a friend knows the dilemma: You can be calm and judicious in your praise and risk sounding unenthusiastic (which means they won’t want to see it); or you can jump up and down and use every superlative at your disposal (which, for many young people is confined to “Awesome!”) and risk raising their expectations so high that they’re disappointed with the movie and will never watch another movie you recommend.Read More
Read More
First of all, I wish each of you a Happy New Year! (I’d say it’s going pretty well so far although the dearth of snow is, of course, a black mark on the year’s record.) Tomorrow night at The Music Hall Loft, we will be discussing Jafar Panahi’s Taxi. At least that’s the official name. The film is really named Taxi and it was directed by Jafar Panahi. Whatever.Read More
Read More
