Life of Riley: Alain Resnais’s final film (Kino, $19.99 Blu-ray, $17.99 DVD), which premiered just three weeks before his death, is an effervescent comedy that sees the French cinema giant accepting his transition with grace, laughter and sardonic self-awareness. Adapted from the English play of the same name by Alan Ayckbourn, it charts the machinations of George Riley, a … [Read more...]
French take on Woodyesque cinema a tired rom-com
Most movies about pop-cultural obsessives -- those individuals who live vicariously through other people’s art, films and music -- are usually about young-to-middle-aged men untethered from relationships and, in many cases, social decorum: High Fidelity, Diner, Free Enterprise, Cinemania, Watching the Detectives, Play it Again, Sam. These movies were always about men; women … [Read more...]
The View From Home 16: New releases on DVD
Everyone Else (Cinema Guild) Release date: Oct. 26 SLP: $20.49 If “mainstream cinema” is shorthand for grounded, explicable, coherent story arcs told with logic and closure, then art cinema – the yin to Hollywood’s yang – is the terrain of the unknown, the inexplicable, the frustratingly open-ended. Its filmmakers are fully aware that, as in life, they don’t have all the … [Read more...]
New independent cinema house at FAU broadens area’s film offerings
With the exception of the occasional adventuresome booking at West Palm Beach’s long-since defunct Carefree Theatre, this county used to be a wasteland when it came to international, independent or alternative films. But six years ago, a digitally projected national network, Emerging Cinema, moved into Lake Worth. Now, beginning this weekend, comes Living Room Theaters, a more … [Read more...]