Screen
Train of thought
No matter how blue-collar or red-meat the story, director Tony Scott’s movies revel in his luxe, glossy yet easily distracted technique that ensures every shot is trailer-ready, and every fractured moment strives for maximum coolness. He’s an old-school cliche-...
reel to reel | Week of July 19, 2012
THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN Peter Parker gets a new look (and an origin story) in this Marvel remake of everyone’s favorite web slinger. Unlike Toby Maguire’s emo-esque rendition of the wall-crawler, actor Andrew Garfield’s portayal hopes to bring Spidey back to his ...
My name is Marina Vidal
Marina Vidal (Daniela Vega, Chile’s first openly transgender actress and model) is a waitress with designs of being a singer. And with a voice...
Gestating the obvious
Writer/director Darren Aronofsky’s mother! is a dense, gorgeously made, challenging, total piece of shit. It is every bit the treatise on feminism and modern...
Jonze takes ‘Wild’ risks; succeeds
Truly, I am madly, deeply in love with the film version of Where the Wild Things Are. Not since Robert Altman took on Popeye a generation ago, and lost, has a major director addressed such a well-loved, all-ages title. This time everything works, from tip to tail, ...
Swing and a miss
Dame Helen Mirren as a toughtalking Nevada brothel madam? We like to think our finest screen performers can play anyone. Mirren, whose career has encompassed the full spectrum of human behavior, from queens to gangster’s molls, is fully capable of tackling a ...
‘Nine’ is sexy, engaging and stylish
Films are dreams, whether the director is aiming for hyper-realism or whether we’re allowed to fly through the odd, the dreamy, and the troubling of their imagination. Director Rob Marshall’s Nine is a sexy, engaging, stylish and enlightening journey through the ...
Better than nothing
Set in Manhattan, The Switch is all over the place. But around the halfway point it starts getting interesting and the people who put it together are at least working in a realm of reasonable intelligence and wit and respect for the audience. I wish it were great, ...
A couple of clowns
There is something in the air at the 39th Denver Film Festival (DFF), something musical. Be it Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling channeling the...
Life goes on
There is nothing in this life more tragic, more soul-crushing than the untimely loss of a loved one. Thankfully, we have developed faiths, routines...
