I’d imagine every one of us, despite our individual life situations, however privileged or difficult they may be, wouldn’t have too much trouble coming up with a pretty long list of people and circumstances for which to be grateful, during the upcoming week traditionally reserved for the expression of thanks as well as throughout the entirety of the year.
Even in our brave new world, where gratitude and humility and generosity of spirit often seem to be in short supply, at the mercy of greed, abuse of power, disregard for the rule of law, and megalomaniac self-interest cynically masquerading as an aggressive strain of nationalist, populist passion, there are good, everyday reasons to look around and take stock of blessings in one’s immediate surroundings.
And speaking specifically as one who has the privilege and opportunity to occasionally write about matters concerning the movies, and even a (very...
Even in our brave new world, where gratitude and humility and generosity of spirit often seem to be in short supply, at the mercy of greed, abuse of power, disregard for the rule of law, and megalomaniac self-interest cynically masquerading as an aggressive strain of nationalist, populist passion, there are good, everyday reasons to look around and take stock of blessings in one’s immediate surroundings.
And speaking specifically as one who has the privilege and opportunity to occasionally write about matters concerning the movies, and even a (very...
- 11/23/2017
- by Dennis Cozzalio
- Trailers from Hell
It might seem that celebrating the drive-in movie season during the dog days of August is a celebration that is coming about two, maybe three months too late. Isn’t summer just about wrapped up? Ha! Only if you’re in still in grade school—my kids went back to their respective halls of education on August 8! For them summer, in a single but significant way, is over. But for everyone else (including students), especially if you’re in the southwestern part of the country, the hot days of summer aren’t giving way to cool temperatures anytime soon, regardless of the insistence of the calendar. In Southern California, climate change has made summer-style heat a staple well into October, and sometimes beyond. Here it’s always drive-in season, even in January, and that’s the silver lining of a sizzling autumn for fans of the specific joys of outdoor cinema.
- 8/20/2016
- by Dennis Cozzalio
- Trailers from Hell
Reviewer: Craig Phillips
Ratings (out of five): ***
The Duplass Brothers, Mark and Jay, are back with this sweet indie comedy that is surprisingly funny, if a bit less interesting substantively than Cyrus. While it suffers a bit from some contrived plottings, the cast and good humor shine through sweetly.
Jason Segel and Ed Helms, both doing some of their best work to date, play estranged brothers who reconnect to help each other out of sticky situations. Segel's Jeff is, as the title suggests, a slacking manchild who currently lives with his mother (Susan Sarandon, who seems to be having a second life lately supporting roles in indie dramedies -- and I'm not complaining).
Ratings (out of five): ***
The Duplass Brothers, Mark and Jay, are back with this sweet indie comedy that is surprisingly funny, if a bit less interesting substantively than Cyrus. While it suffers a bit from some contrived plottings, the cast and good humor shine through sweetly.
Jason Segel and Ed Helms, both doing some of their best work to date, play estranged brothers who reconnect to help each other out of sticky situations. Segel's Jeff is, as the title suggests, a slacking manchild who currently lives with his mother (Susan Sarandon, who seems to be having a second life lately supporting roles in indie dramedies -- and I'm not complaining).
- 8/28/2012
- by weezy
- GreenCine
Reviewer: Craig Phillips
Ratings (out of five): ***
Something's Gonna Live is filmmaker Daniel Raim's follow-up to his Man on Lincoln's Nose, and once again looks at former Hollywood production designer Robert Boyle, now 97 during the filming of this documentary. It's a love letter to a Hollywood long since gone with some of its surviving members, a sweet, poignant little portrait of a neglected artist. If it has a bit of a home movie feel to it and doesn't have a great deal of dramatic energy to it, for anyone who considers them an aficionado of Old Hollywood, it's very worthy viewing.
Ratings (out of five): ***
Something's Gonna Live is filmmaker Daniel Raim's follow-up to his Man on Lincoln's Nose, and once again looks at former Hollywood production designer Robert Boyle, now 97 during the filming of this documentary. It's a love letter to a Hollywood long since gone with some of its surviving members, a sweet, poignant little portrait of a neglected artist. If it has a bit of a home movie feel to it and doesn't have a great deal of dramatic energy to it, for anyone who considers them an aficionado of Old Hollywood, it's very worthy viewing.
- 7/24/2012
- by weezy
- GreenCine
by Craig Phillips
[The 55th San Francisco International Film Festival continues through May 3.]
The distinctly deadpan feature debut of Lebanese filmmaker Rania Attieh and her American co-director Daniel Garcia, Ok, Enough, Goodbye is a warm but not overly sentimental, low-key character comedy. Like the Middle Eastern answer to Azazel Jacobs' Momma's Man, the film concerns a 40-year-old schlub (Daniel Arzrouni) who still lives at home in Tripoli—a seaport city with a rich history dating back to the 14th century, which has since fallen on hard economic times.
The locale has an air of sadness about it; not just war-torn malaise but a feeling for things lost between generations, palpably seeping into this household as a mother regrets that her son is such a loser. She speaks of wedding ceremonies and gowns she used to make, while her sociophobic son can't get a date with anyone other than a prostitute. The unnamed protagonist works in a bakery and doesn't otherwise get out much.
[The 55th San Francisco International Film Festival continues through May 3.]
The distinctly deadpan feature debut of Lebanese filmmaker Rania Attieh and her American co-director Daniel Garcia, Ok, Enough, Goodbye is a warm but not overly sentimental, low-key character comedy. Like the Middle Eastern answer to Azazel Jacobs' Momma's Man, the film concerns a 40-year-old schlub (Daniel Arzrouni) who still lives at home in Tripoli—a seaport city with a rich history dating back to the 14th century, which has since fallen on hard economic times.
The locale has an air of sadness about it; not just war-torn malaise but a feeling for things lost between generations, palpably seeping into this household as a mother regrets that her son is such a loser. She speaks of wedding ceremonies and gowns she used to make, while her sociophobic son can't get a date with anyone other than a prostitute. The unnamed protagonist works in a bakery and doesn't otherwise get out much.
- 5/1/2012
- GreenCine Daily
Reviewer: Craig Phillips
Ratings (out of five): ****
With a title that makes it sound like an action film, Steve James' new documentary The Interrupters actually is an action film in a way -- it's about the brave actions of a few reformed souls who try to do some good in a world of violence. James, who co-directed the masterful epic Hoop Dreams, one of the most important documentaries of the past thirty years, returns to Chicago for this story of those who call themselves "interrupters," people who try to mediate gang-related disputes before they escalate into violence.
The film, based on a book by Alex Kotlowitz, has a remarkably fluid, fly on the wall style of which Frederick Wiseman would approve. Though snubbed by this year's Oscars, it did at least win the Indie Spirit Award for Best Documentary.
Ratings (out of five): ****
With a title that makes it sound like an action film, Steve James' new documentary The Interrupters actually is an action film in a way -- it's about the brave actions of a few reformed souls who try to do some good in a world of violence. James, who co-directed the masterful epic Hoop Dreams, one of the most important documentaries of the past thirty years, returns to Chicago for this story of those who call themselves "interrupters," people who try to mediate gang-related disputes before they escalate into violence.
The film, based on a book by Alex Kotlowitz, has a remarkably fluid, fly on the wall style of which Frederick Wiseman would approve. Though snubbed by this year's Oscars, it did at least win the Indie Spirit Award for Best Documentary.
- 2/28/2012
- by weezy
- GreenCine
Reviewer: Craig Phillips
Rating (out of five): * * *
The Human Resources Manager, released on DVD by the reliably interesting Film Movement catalog, won five major Israeli Ophir Awards (Israel’s Oscars). Directed by Eran Riklis, Based on A.B. Yehoshua's book "A Woman in Jerusalem," the film is a worthy if occasionally sluggish follow-up to his previous feature, The Lemon Tree. The film starts off a bit slow, but stick with it; when the story leaves Israel it resonates.
The titular employee (Mark Ivanir) manages Jerusalem's largest bakery, and his life is on the skids. He hates his job, his wife's left him, and he struggles to maintain connection to his young daughter. Then a foreign-born female employee, Yulia (interestingly, the only character in the film who is given a name), is killed in a suicide bombing, and he has to help the company make amends after negative news coverage,...
Rating (out of five): * * *
The Human Resources Manager, released on DVD by the reliably interesting Film Movement catalog, won five major Israeli Ophir Awards (Israel’s Oscars). Directed by Eran Riklis, Based on A.B. Yehoshua's book "A Woman in Jerusalem," the film is a worthy if occasionally sluggish follow-up to his previous feature, The Lemon Tree. The film starts off a bit slow, but stick with it; when the story leaves Israel it resonates.
The titular employee (Mark Ivanir) manages Jerusalem's largest bakery, and his life is on the skids. He hates his job, his wife's left him, and he struggles to maintain connection to his young daughter. Then a foreign-born female employee, Yulia (interestingly, the only character in the film who is given a name), is killed in a suicide bombing, and he has to help the company make amends after negative news coverage,...
- 12/7/2011
- by weezy
- GreenCine
Following rounds 1 and 2, this one will take us right on through the countdown to Halloween and will surely be the most actively updated of the bunch. Best to begin, then, by grounding it in a classic, so we turn to David Kalat: "Frankenstein isn't a science fiction story about an arrogant scientist who intrudes on God's domain, it's a metaphor about our relationship to God." That's his argument, and I'll let him explain, but I want to pull back to a couple of earlier sentences in his piece. Mary Shelley's novel, "and the 1910 film version, treated the 'science' of Frankenstein as just so much folderol, a MacGuffin to introduce the artificial man into the story. Whale was so good at providing a reasonably convincing visualization of reviving the dead — no, more than that, a stunningly satisfying visualization of reviving the dead — it focused popular attention on that part of...
- 10/27/2011
- MUBI
Reviewer: Craig Phillips
Rating (out of five): ****, Likely ***** if footage wasn’t lost
For a film that had been one of the most sought-after missing-in-action DVDs, Orson Welles' “other masterpiece” -- when it finally arrived -- did so with surprisingly little fanfare. It's certainly at least partially due to the DVD arriving as part of an exclusive special edition set with the more widely available 70th Anniversary Blu-Ray version of Citizen Kane, and not individually or on Blu-ray. Still, its release is cause for celebration, especially for Welles completists and cineastes in general.
Rating (out of five): ****, Likely ***** if footage wasn’t lost
For a film that had been one of the most sought-after missing-in-action DVDs, Orson Welles' “other masterpiece” -- when it finally arrived -- did so with surprisingly little fanfare. It's certainly at least partially due to the DVD arriving as part of an exclusive special edition set with the more widely available 70th Anniversary Blu-Ray version of Citizen Kane, and not individually or on Blu-ray. Still, its release is cause for celebration, especially for Welles completists and cineastes in general.
- 10/25/2011
- by weezy
- GreenCine
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.