Perhaps the most amazing thing about Asteroid City is that it actually exists. For the bean counters who fund the movies, eccentricity and experimentation are rarely inspiring motivators to open wallets, as evidenced by the Sisyphean career of Terry Gilliam. But somehow, even though his projects have by no means been consistently successful, Wes Anderson has managed to crack … [Read more...]
Masterful ‘Marriage Story’ gets power from little heartbreaks
The last time Scarlett Johansson traversed a void of frame-filling darkness, she was a voluptuous alien consuming eager men like so much protein in 2013’s Under the Skin. In the opening fade-in of Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story, she is once again a figure framed in absolute blackness, a light emerging from its absence in glorious medium shot. It’s almost religious, like one … [Read more...]