Boyhood, perhaps the most acclaimed film of 2014, was a risk on many levels. Foremost among them was the pressure put on a 6-year-old kid named Ellar Coltrane to carry a movie that revolved around him, that he would grow before the viewers’ eyes into an accomplished actor as he grew — literally — from 6 to 18 years old. But the risk by writer-director Richard Linklater paid … [Read more...]
At the Festival of the Arts Boca: ‘West Side Story,’ daughter celebrate Bernstein
By Dale King At the halfway point of the 2015 Festival of the Arts Boca, many audiences have already seen and heard a great deal about Leonard Bernstein. His elder daughter, Jamie Bernstein, kicked off the annual 10-day event March 4 with a lecture about her father’s legacy, offering backstories about the making of perhaps his most famous work, the musical and film versions of … [Read more...]
Bikel, Tevye and Aleichem: Film celebrates stories and storytellers
Actor-activist-folk troubadour Theodore Bikel turned 90 in May, the year he celebrated 75 years in show business. Born in Vienna in 1924, he fled Austria with his family 14 years later as the Nazis occupied his native land. So he knows firsthand what it is like to be uprooted from your home, just as Tevye the dairyman — a role Bikel has played more than 2,000 times — was in … [Read more...]
Looking back: 2014’s best in film
After another summer of superheroes, sequels and special effects, Hollywood got serious and released enough films of quality for adults to fill a 10-best list. You have to wonder how the industry can churn out so many exceptional movies in November and December, and so much junk in the first 10 months of the year. To land on the list, a film has to open in South Florida during … [Read more...]
The View From Home 65: Antonioni’s ramble, Malle’s anarchic comedy, another Korean shocker
L’Avventura: It is one of filmdom’s great synchronicities that Michelangelo Antonioni unveiled L’Avventura (Criterion, $27.59 Blu-ray, $26.96 DVD) the same year Alfred Hitchcock unleashed Psycho. These films, released in 1960, challenged cinematic conventions in similar ways by dispatching their ostensible protagonists within the first third of the movie, causing narrative … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: June 13-15
Film: Bicycling with Molière is a French film about two actors with large egos — if that is not redundant — rivals who are envious of each other to a fault. Gauthier (Lambert Wilson) is a television star who plays a brain surgeon on a popular French series, while the other has quit the business and moved to a small, remote village. Unsatisfied with his success, the TV actor … [Read more...]
The View From Home 59: Hawking’s history, a gruesome morality tale, coming of age in the South, and more
A Brief History of Time: For years, Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time has been sitting on my shelf, its spine ashamedly uncracked, waiting for the hypothetical day when I have hours of time on my hands and the irrepressible desire to read sentences six times before possibly comprehending them. Forgive me if I’d gallop a bit quicker toward completing an 84-minute movie … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: April 11-13
Film: OK, it’s not a great weekend for film releases, but if you are still going through withdrawal after the football season, you can get a fictional look at the Cleveland Browns’ front office in Draft Day, opening wide this weekend. Kevin Costner gets his best role in years as the team’s general manager, Sonny Weaver Jr., wheeling and dealing in preparation for the crucial … [Read more...]
‘The Wind Rises’ an astonishing swan song
The Wind Rises, the self-professed final film from Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away), is as visually masterful as ever. It’s filmed in his preferred, largely hand-drawn and 2D style, with deep attention paid to the flickers of light and the accuracy of shadows, to the right amount of ash and flames swirling above an earthquake-stricken city and to the … [Read more...]
Good year for movies means good contest for Oscars
What would the Academy Awards be without nomination snubs? Just ask Robert Redford, Tom Hanks, Oprah Winfrey and Emma Thompson, some of the prominent stars expected to be in this year’s Oscars race who were missing in action when the dust cloud from Thursday morning’s announcements settled. By most accounts, it was a good year at the movies, with a diverse crowd of popular and … [Read more...]