Blind Shaft shows you the literal underbelly of China. Set in and around shabby little coal mines in the middle of nowhere, it’s a shocking and totally gripping tale of murder and flimflammery that will keep you guessing all the way through. Tang (Wang Shuangbao) and Song (Li Yixiang) are two itinerant workers who wander […]
A documentary’s potency is usually measured on two levels: the ability to convey information, and its power at swaying you emotionally. When a filmmaker accomplishes both, they truly have something precious to share with others, but striving to do one or the other well can also be acceptable provided you still feel different walking out
Clint Eastwood is back to lay down the law and settle a new score. This time, his pursuit of justice has a new wrinkle (or many, I suppose) his age. In Blood Work, his aging lawman portrayal is highly convincing, but by the end of the film this fascinating character study looses all credibility at
The year is 1984. Reagan is looking forward to four more years as president. Orwell’s book by the same name is at the top of the popularity bell curve. The Olympic games are held in Los Angeles and two unknown guys named Joel and Ethan Coen decide to team up and write a movie script.
In the famed cocaine drama Scarface, I remember a lot of gun battles and bowl after bowl of cocaine spilled on the table. I do not remember heartfelt talks with dad, a cancer-stricken girlfriend, and a child custody battle. Yet such is the world of Blow, the most wildly anticipated drug thriller since, well, last
The mid to late-‘60s were a heady time for art cinemas in America. While Hollywood was still saddled with content restrictions that forbade nudity, sex, and other bankable cinematic ingredients, less puritanical cultures like those of France, Italy, and Sweden were turning out highbrow features that played to the id and the intellect at the
At 104 minutes, Blue Crush puts the “endless” in the popular surf phrase “endless summer.” It certainly feels longer than any movie derived from a magazine article deserves to be (in this case, it’s author Susan Orlean’s 1998 Women’s Outdoor magazine piece “Surf Girls of Maui”). But the bloated undertaking especially disappoints because Crush positively
Typecasting. Definition, when writers pigeonhole you into one role, assuming you can do nothing more than that. However, typecasting is not just a product of the writers. It is not just a product of your Hollywood image. It’s a product of what you choose to do. Case in point Martin Lawrence, whose new movie Blue
Credits slowly emerge from undulating blue velvet as Angelo Badalamenti’s arousing score fills the soundtrack. Dissolve to clear, blue skies, clean white picket fences, budding red roses, and yellow tulips. A man riding on a passing fire truck waves. A uniformed crossing guard holds a stop sign allowing children to safely cross the street. We
The only thing I remembered about seeing Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Blue the first part of his Three Colors trilogy (see also White, Red) is that it put me to sleep right at the 40-minute mark. Watched again with a more mature and critical eye years later I didn’t nod off, but impatient types will find the
