Screen
‘Hockney’ takes a look inside the mind of a painter
I’m interested in ways of looking, and trying to think of it in simple ways,” David Hockney says. “Everybody does look, it’s a question...
Please sir, may I have my job?
Sit down, Sartre. Writers/directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne get it a bit more right: Hell isn’t just other people. Hell is asking other people to surrender their bonuses so you can keep your job. Two Days, One Night is a harrowing social allegory, a dramatic ...
Adventures in cinema
Back for a 15th year, the Boulder International Film Festival (BIFF), Feb. 28–March 3, has expanded its usual scope. With over 50 features and...
The sound of a true American voice
Ten years ago at the Sundance Film Festival, a new voice in American cinema was announced. The voice was not loud, but it was clear, and it belonged to the 29-year-old Ramin Bahrani...
Not a good look
"More plot!” demanded not one single fan of the original Zoolander. So, of course, writers Justin Theroux, Ben Stiller, Nicholas Stoller and John Hamburg...
‘This isn’t a comic book’
Writer/director Jeff Wadlow’s Kick-Ass 2 is “morning radio shock jock” offensive, which is a thematic departure from the source material written by Mark Millar. But is it better to flinch from the vile, reprobate, misogynistic glee of Millar’s comic miniseries or to ...
Fast, furious fun
As adolescent male power fantasies go, Fast Five has an undeniable trashy charm...
Light on bananas
In spurts, Kong: Skull Island is the whacked-out, gleeful nonsense director Jordan Vogt-Roberts clearly longed to make. Straight-jacketed by a studio determined to craft...
A film of great scowling
Actors learn only by doing, and by getting in over their heads. In the heyday of the Hollywood studio era, often they’d do this while wearing extremely heavy battle garb, surrounded by extras yelling “Aarrrrrghhhh!” as they run toward the enemy...
Not in the Zone
Matt Damon stars in Green Zone as Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller, who is increasingly frustrated by the pointless missions he’s sent on, finding empty warehouses where intel has pinpointed weapons of mass destruction. Leading the government conspiracy is Clark ...
Reel to Reel | Week of March 22, 2012
21 JUMP STREET Two young police officers and ex-classmates go undercover at a local high school to investigate a dangerous drug ring. Rated R. At Century, Colony Square and Twin Peaks. — Los Angeles Times/MCT ACT OF VALOR After the rescue of a kidnapped CIA ...
Who needs a swan song?
Golden Era Hollywood screenwriter Frank S. Nugent once described story as a disturbance of the status quo: “Something happens to upset it; the disturbance...
