Is Tomorrowland a movie, or a 130-minute advertisement for a theme park? Borrowing its title from the futuristic Disneyland/Magic Kingdom attraction of the same name, Brad Bird’s second live-action feature is certainly his most shameless. In this expensive monument to CGI plasticity, Bird’s vision — eccentric, referential, inspired — vies for your attention with blatant … [Read more...]
‘True Story’ a penetrating study in obsession
True Story is, among other things, a movie about addiction, but not to the usual addictive suspects — booze, drugs, sex, gambling. It’s about an addiction to the truth, or moreover the perception of truth, and the obsessions and compulsions that drive it. It’s the sort of addiction to which any dedicated newshound can relate, the kind that results in sleepless nights, 80-hour … [Read more...]
Director of ‘The Gambler’ offers a tale of outsider redemption
English-born filmmaker Rupert Wyatt is well aware that there was a 1974 movie called The Gambler, starring James Caan and Lauren Hutton, but to his mind he was never doing a remake. “I remember it being specifically a study of addiction,” he says of the earlier film. “So when I read the script that Bill Monahan had written, I knew immediately that we weren’t making the same … [Read more...]
‘I Origins’: Movie of ideas almost loses way in Hollywoodism
Mike Cahill and Brit Marling make science-fiction films that don’t feel at all removed from present day — or should we say prescient day. Another Earth, their 2011 debut, posited the discovery of another Earth-like planet, and its tortured protagonist enters a contest to fly their on a civilian spacecraft, in a project spearheaded by a millionaire entrepreneur. Two years … [Read more...]
‘Gigolo’ can’t settle on a story
As the fading gigolo in Fading Gigolo, John Turturro plays a convincing enough stud — gaunt, laconic and mysterious, with a magnetism that belies both his looks and age. His character, whose real name is never mentioned, is a worldly florist with a reputable track record as a lover who is talked into the world’s oldest profession by his strange old buddy Murray (Woody Allen), a … [Read more...]
Maltz to bring movie classic a little closer (bring your poncho)
Traditionally, the first four rows of a theater are the most sought after seats, unless you are attending a show by The Flying Karamazov Brothers ― those comic jugglers of hazardous objects ― or the Maltz Jupiter Theatre’s production of Singin’ in the Rain. For audience members at the Maltz seated close to the stage will be issued waterproof ponchos to protect them during the … [Read more...]
The View From Home 13: New releases on DVD
Cinevardaphoto (Cinema Guild) Standard list price: $29.95 Release date: Aug. 31 For a filmmaker of Agnes Varda’s renown, it’s important to note how few features she has made over her 40-plus-year career. She boasts 47 directorial credits on the Internet Movie Database, yet most cineastes who haven’t spelunked into the deepest depths of the French New Wave know her mainly for … [Read more...]