Spring Breakers (2013)

Spring Breakers / Harmony Korine / 2013 / fivestar

Active Ingredients: James Franco; Fragmented narrative; Textured visual style
Side Effects: Philosophizing phone calls; Thin characters

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Spring Breakers from edgy provocateur Harmony Korine will catch many viewers off guard. And that’s probably the point. Starring a bevy of former Disney princesses, the film promises sex, drugs and a heavy dose of hedonistic spring break revelry. The film certainly delivers titillation, but that it comes along with equal parts insidious danger threatens to spoil the party. For all its purposeful sloppiness, Spring Breakers is actually delicately balanced on a razor’s edge, having its party and crashing it too. It’s a delirious rush and the strangest wide release to hit theaters in some time. Read more…

2010s, 5 Stars

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April 5, 2013

2 Comments

Leviathan (2013)

Leviathan / Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Véréna Paravel / 2013 / fivestarAvailable on Netflix Instant at time of posting

Active Ingredients: Immersive sound; Abstract visuals; Multiplying perspectives
Side Effects: Application of style to depictions of crew members

The experience of life—all kinds of life—aboard a large commercial fishing vessel reaches almost mythic proportions in the experimental documentary Leviathan. Armed with a fleet of tiny, cheap GoPro cameras, directors Lucien Castaing-Taylor (Sweetgrass) and Véréna Paravel (Foreign Parts) render the creak of metal, the crash of the ocean and the throngs of sea creatures larger than life. From one shot to the next, our perspective swings across every corner of this floating ecosystem, gradually constructing a composite beast made from equal parts of man, nature and machinery. Leviathan positively floods the senses, and the result is a unique and exhilarating cinematic experience. Read more…

2010s, 5 Stars

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April 2, 2013

3 Comments

Stoker (2013)

Stoker / Park Chan-wook / 2013 / fourstar

Active Ingredients: Gothic pulpiness; Inventive, subjective camerawork
Side Effects: Obligatory twists; A bit thin on substance

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South Korean director Park Chan-wook’s English-language debut Stoker is a sleazy, unnerving Gothic melodrama pitched somewhere between a psychological thriller and a cheesy throwback horror film. It’s as highly stylized and visually dynamic as we’ve come to expect from the director of Oldboy, but it trades in the lugubrious tone and raw misery of Park’s less successful films for an elevated and irresistible luridness. If it’s also a bit thin on substance, well, it’s got other things on its mind. Read more…

2010s, 4 Stars

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March 23, 2013

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Oz: The Great and Powerful (2013)

Oz: The Great and Powerful / Sam Raimi / 2013 / twostar

Active Ingredients: James Franco; Familiar fantasy/adventure narrative
Side Effects: Over-reliance on CGI; Supporting characters

Sam Raimi returns to Oz in this multicolored fantasy that retains many of the original film’s recognizable elements, if not its overall feeling. I’m finding it hard to decide if Oz is up to a similar trick of early-film mythmaking as Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, or if it’s simply an overblown Hollywood family film with a story like any other. Either way, it’s a fine if ultimately forgettable adventure to a place in film legend. Read more…

2 Stars, 2010s

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March 12, 2013

1 Comment

Little Fugitive (1953)

Little Fugitive / Morris Engel, Ruth Orkin & Ray Ashley / 1953 / fourstar

Active Ingredients: Documentary-like photography; Naturalism; Childhood perspective
Side Effects: Early scripted scenes

[Little Fugitive is playing in a restored 35mm print at Boston’s MFA from March 6th to March 10th.]

A huge influence on François Truffaut and other French New Wave filmmakers, Little Fugitive is a simple and poignant look at childhood joy and childhood confusion. Co-directors Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin were both New York based photographers, and they deftly take their eye for small-scale social life and drama to the cinema with this film. Using lightweight, handheld 35mm cameras, Engel captures with neo-realist authenticity the ups and downs of a 7-year-old boy’s day spent alone at Coney Island. The film won the top prize at Venice Film Festival, and has lost none of its immediacy and power since. Read more…

1950s, 4 Stars

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March 6, 2013

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New to Netflix Instant – Feb. 18

Having trouble finding something good to watch on Netflix Instant? Here’s a rundown of a couple of new additions for the week of February 18th, ranging from silent classics to Oscar-winning contemporary documentaries.

Earth

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February 18, 2013

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Side Effects (2013)

Side Effects / Steven Soderbergh / 2013 / fourstar

Active Ingredients: Psychological sound design; Unpredictability; Taught direction
Side Effects: Underdeveloped characters; Multiple endings

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Side Effects is a difficult film to write about. Not so much because it contains grandiose plot twists in the vein of The Usual Suspects, but because it’s never clear which direction the film will veer at any moment. Much like the entire directorial career of Steven Soderbergh—which, he claims, will end with this film—Side Effects deftly and gleefully weaves its way through a host of different tones, moods and genres, all the while maintaining the suspense of a tightrope walk. And, again like Soderbergh’s career, the film’s success and originally is defined by its versatility. Read more…

2010s, 4 Stars

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February 14, 2013

2 Comments

Some Great 2012 Films Streaming on Netflix Instant

With The Oscars around the corner and too few worthwhile new films in theaters, now is a good time to catch up with some of the best of last year’s films available to stream on Netflix Instant. The list includes 7 of my top 20 films of the year and a few new ones I’ve recently caught up with. Documentaries, international festival favorites, animation, there’s a bit of everything here. Please add a comment if you have other suggestions to add.

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February 6, 2013

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Modest Reception (2013)

Modest Reception / Mani Haghighi / 2013 / twostar

Active Ingredients: Slowly developing thematic implications
Side Effects: Handling of tones; Frustrating performances

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[Modest Reception plays January 30th and 31st and The Boston Festival of Films from Iran at the MFA.]

Throughout the month of January, the MFA has been celebrating the diversity of Iranian film through its Boston Festival of Films from Iran. Here in America, we’re lucky if we’re able to see the films of festival regulars like Abbas Kiarostami or Jafar Panahi, but Iranian cinema outside the international art house mold is rarely, if ever, seen. Modest Reception is, I think, distinct from the formal characteristics of Kiarostami’s and Panahi’s films, yet it also operates outside the conventions of the Hollywood output we’re likely to see in January and February. It’s precisely this distance from our own cinematic traditions that makes a film series like the MFA’s so valuable, even if Modest Reception is largely unsuccessful. Read more…

2 Stars, 2010s, Festival

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January 28, 2013

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2012: The Year in Miscellaneous Superlatives

2012 is already over, but it’s always fun to indulge in more of the year-end awards and Top 10 lists. You can find my Top 20 films here and here, but in this post I list my favorite performances of the year, both lead and supporting, the best scenes of the year, and my favorite: the year in miscellaneous superlatives.

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Denis Lavant in Holy Motors

Best Lead Performances of 2012

  • Denis Lavant – Holy Motors
  • Joaquin Phoenix – The Master
  • Emmanuelle Riva – Amour
  • Jean-Louis Trentignant – Amour
  • Rachel Weisz – The Deep Blue Sea

Best Supporting Performances of 2012

  • Simon Russell Beale – The Deep Blue Sea
  • Michael Fassbender – Prometheus
  • Dwight Henry – Beasts of the Southern Wild
  • Philip Seymour Hoffman – The Master
  • Ana Moreira – Tabu Read more…

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January 10, 2013

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