Age difference between Woody Allen (Harry Block) and his co-stars: 1) Bob Balaban (Richard, Harry’s best friend): 10 years 2) Kirstie Alley (Joan, Harry’s ex-wife): 16 years 3) Caroline Aaron (Doris, Harry’s sister): 17 years 4) Judy Davis (Lucy, Harry’s ex-girlfriend): 20 years 5) Elisabeth Shue (Fay, Harry’s current girlfriend): 28 years Non-white actors with [...]
Archive for March, 2011
Mailbox Film Festival #18: Deconstructing Harry (Allen, 1997)
Posted in Say/Think, tagged 1997, 1997 movies, deconstructing harry, mailbox film festival, movies, woody allen on March 29, 2011 | 2 Comments »
Mailbox Film Festival #17: A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop (Zhang, 2009)
Posted in Say/Think, tagged 2009, 2009 movies, 2010, 2010 movies, a woman a gun and a noodle shop, blood simple, mailbox film festival, movies, the coen brothers, zhang yimou on March 28, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Over last Christmas break, I was talking to my dad about the Coen Brothers’ remake of True Grit. He made the comment that it didn’t feel like a typical Coen Brothers movie. I disagree, but I see where he was coming from. Mention the Coen Brothers and most people will think of Raising Arizona, Fargo, [...]
Mailbox Film Festival #16: Micmacs (Jeunet, 2009)
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged 2009, 2009 movies, 2010, 2010 movies, jean-pierre jeunet, mailbox film festival, micmacs, movies on March 26, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Micmacs isn’t a bad film at all. In fact, it’s got quite a lot of charm. The plot of Micmacs is as much a political wish-fulfillment fantasy as The Ghost Writer, but its outlandishness almost makes it more believable. The actors ably toe the line between zany and overly twee, with the sorts of expressive [...]
Mailbox Film Festival #15: Greenberg (Baumbach, 2010)
Posted in Say/Think, tagged 2010, 2010 movies, ben stiller, greenberg, greta gerwig, jennifer jason leigh, kicking and screaming, mailbox film festival, mark duplass, movies, noah baumbach, rhys ifans on March 24, 2011 | 1 Comment »
I’m a big fan of Noah Baumbach’s first film, Kicking and Screaming, probably because I saw it shortly after finishing grad school. I’m not sure there’s another movie that so squarely gets that post-graduation combination of anxiety and ambivalence, where the freedom to do anything paralyzes you into doing nothing. Sure, The Graduate is a [...]
Mailbox Film Festival #14: The Ghost Writer (Polanski, 2010)
Posted in Say/Think, tagged 2010, 2010 movies, ewan macgregor, mailbox film festival, movies, pierce brosnan, robert harris, roman polanski, the ghost, the ghost writer on March 20, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Much has been made of how Pierce Brosnan’s character in The Ghost Writer is a blatant stand-in for Tony Blair. Co-screenwriter Robert Harris (who also penned the novel The Ghost that the film is based on) was a former Blair supporter who became disillusioned with the prime minister’s enthusiasm for the Iraq War. Harris paints [...]
Fresh Celluloid #5: Cracks (Scott, 2009)
Posted in Say/Think, tagged 2009, 2009 movies, 2011, 2011 movies, cracks, eva green, fresh celluloid, jordan scott, juno temple, maria valverde, movies on March 17, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
I never went to an all-girls school, and certainly not a boarding school. I did, however, attend a girls’ summer camp for one month every summer from the ages of 10 to 17. From my experience there (an overwhelmingly positive one, I should clarify), I think I can extrapolate an understanding of the even more [...]
Mailbox Film Festival #13: A Film Unfinished (Hersonski, 2010)
Posted in Say/Think, tagged 2010, 2010 movies, a film unfinished, das ghetto, documentary, mailbox film festival, movies, yael hersonski on March 14, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
No other time or place in history has been as well documented as America in the early 21st Century, at least in terms of number of keystrokes. But how much of it will survive the endless cycles of format obsolescence? Even if the Library of Congress still stands a thousand years from now, could future [...]
Mailbox Film Festival #12: Altered States (Russell, 1980)
Posted in Say/Think, tagged 1980, 1980 movies, altered states, blair brown, bob balaban, ken russell, mailbox film festival, movies, william hurt on March 10, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Last summer at Lincoln Center, I had the good fortune to see every film Ken Russell made between 1969 and 1977, from off-kilter stabs at the stuff of prestige pictures (Women in Love, The Music Lovers) to cocaine-fueled triumphs of muchness (Tommy, Lisztomania). During this period, Russell produced such masterpieces as the criminally forgotten Savage [...]
Mailbox Film Festival #11: Jack Goes Boating (Hoffman, 2010)
Posted in Say/Think, tagged 2010, 2010 movies, amy ryan, bob glaudini, daphne rubin-vega, jack goes boating, john ortiz, mailbox film festival, movies, philip seymour hoffman on March 8, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Few character actors have done as well in modern Hollywood as Philip Seymour Hoffman. Only Paul Giamatti and maybe Steve Buscemi have broken out of the hey-it’s-that-guy ghetto without losing artistic credibility to the degree that Hoffman has. Hoffman’s mainstream success (relatively speaking) can be chalked up to a combination of talent, an eye for [...]
