Film

PSYCHOSTYLE Writer/director Mickey Keating’s Psychopaths doesn’t have much of a plot. We don’t sympathize with the characters. There’s little drama, despite the dramatic subject matter’”torture, murder. Nobody changes. We don’t learn anything. There’s no arc. What there is is an abundance of style. Not disposable stylistics so often used by directors to mask a film’s…

AARDVARK  IS OK, AND SO IS AARDVARK In Brian Shoaf’s dramedy Aardvark, Josh (Zachary Quinto) engages Emily (Jenny Slate) to be his therapist, pays her in cash, and tells her that he has a brother named Craig who performs on a long-running TV show and is “one of the great talents of his generation.” Later, when…

MANY WILL BE WATCHING In Julia Solomonoff’s latest film Nobody’s Watching (Nadie Nos Mira), Nico (a sympathetic Guillermo Pfening), an Argentine soap star who yearns to do serious work, comes to New York to play in an independent film. But with the production continually getting delayed he’s forced to work odd jobs’”babysitter, waiter, apartment cleaner’”to…

SUPER DARK TIMES LOSES ITS WAY, BUT STAND BY DIRECTOR KEVIN PHILLIPS It’s the case nearly every time that if at the beginning of a movie a mistake is made, even one that seems trivial and is in and of itself completely forgivable, as the film progresses bigger and bigger flaws will reveal themselves until…

  OLD-SCHOOL OFFBEAT CRIME DRAMAS & YOU In the 1970s, “low-budget movie” was the umbrella term with which TV Guide covered products as disparate as John Cassavetes’ The Killing of a Chinese Bookie and John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13. Gene Shalit and Rex Reed used a dozen adjectives between them for the entire New Hollywood…

VICTORY AND DEFEATISTS * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * [Editor’s Note:  Oeuvre Total is a film-discussion series. The first exchange concerns Billy Wilder, and our contributors are producer Michael Holland and critic Jason Rohrer. Stage and Cinema  republished the  original seven entries…

LA LA LAND  STARTS WITH OOH-LA-LA BUT LANDS HARD In some ways, La La Land  promises to be a moving, old-fashioned romantic musical  that plays around with old techniques and presents them in a vibrant, zestful fashion.  But some well-staged numbers and appealing actors don’t quite make up for forgettable songs, constrained storytelling, and two leads who aren’t terrific…

IF BILLY WILDER HAD DIRECTED SCHINDLER’S LIST * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * [Editor’s Note:  Oeuvre Total is a film-discussion series. The first exchange concerns Billy Wilder, and our contributors are producer Michael Holland and critic Jason Rohrer. Stage and…

MEET “MEET CUTE” * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * [Editor’s Note:  Oeuvre Total is a film-discussion series between producer Michael Holland and critic Jason Rohrer, begun at Bitter Lemons  and continuing here at  Stage and Cinema. The first ten-part Oeuvre Total exchange…

YOU BET I THINK THIS SONG IS ABOUT YOU Against other self-made Boomers like Clint Eastwood and Robert Redford, I’ll take Warren Beatty in a walk. Productions in which Beatty was the 800-lb gorilla are virtually all he has made for 50 years, and he has stayed political but mostly avoided being didactic (Reds notwithstanding)….

SOME TITLES LIE All Governments Lie is a strident and incompetent piece of activism that collates talking-head journalists with shots of the Capitol Mall, statues of Jefferson, and clips of George W. Bush and Colin Powell telling lies. The subtitle (Truth, Deception and the Spirit of I.F. Stone) promises a biography, an investigation, at least…

GIANT KILLER * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * [Editor’s Note:  Oeuvre Total is a film-discussion series between producer Michael Holland and critic Jason Rohrer, begun at Bitter Lemons  and continuing here at  Stage and Cinema. The first ten-part Oeuvre Total exchange concerns…

THE WORLD AFLAME [Editor’s Note:  Oeuvre Total is a film-discussion series between producer Michael Holland and critic Jason Rohrer, begun at Bitter Lemons  and continuing here at  Stage and Cinema. The first ten-part Oeuvre Total exchange concerns Billy Wilder. After we  run  the previously-published seven original entries (Part III by Mr. Holland  last week; Part IV  by Mr. Rohrer  below) new posts will…

AUTEURIAL BLOOD [Editor’s Note:  Oeuvre Total is a film-discussion series between producer Michael Holland and critic Jason Rohrer, begun at Bitter Lemons  and continuing here at  Stage and Cinema. The first ten-part Oeuvre Total exchange concerns Billy Wilder. After we  run  the previously-published seven original entries (Part II by Mr. Rohrer  last week; Part III by Mr. Holland  below) new posts will…

WILDER IN THE HOLE [Editor’s Note:  Oeuvre Total is a film-discussion series between producer Michael Holland and critic Jason Rohrer, begun at Bitter Lemons  and continuing here at  Stage and Cinema. The first ten-part Oeuvre Total exchange concerns Billy Wilder. After we  run  the previously-published seven original entries (Part I by Mr. Holland last week; Part II by Mr. Rohrer…

THIS MOVIE HATES AMERICA Recently I’ve been feeling pudgy and middle-class. I live in Encino, I drive a Toyota, I bake cookies as a hobby. I ate a Trader Joe’s lamb vindaloo for lunch yesterday and complained it was too spicy. I have always felt that people like this are broken and not to be…