Sigmund Freud, that veritable master of the mind and erstwhile liaison betwixt the dream world and our own (is there really such a hard distinction between the two?), said, “Dreams are often most profound when they seem the most crazy.” In a world where dreams are entered into volitionally, like remarkable virtual reality chambers, anything [...]
If it’s true that superheroes and their stories are the epic tales of our time, then Iron Man (and Iron Man 2) fit the bill. With such obvious Greek elements (not to mention Greek words) as hamartia and hubris, superheroes possess some requisite characteristics suited to telling the engrossing story of a lone man on [...]
Like any twentieth-century decade worth its muster, the eighties carved out an oversized niche for itself in American popular culture. The ubiquity of neon and the advent of portable music ushered into Americana a near constant stream of things we’d rather forget, like Men at Work and Gremlins, and a few we wish had stayed [...]
Despite the misnomer of a title and at least one misleading trailer, this film is not a pleasant, idyllic look at a significant man’s relationship with his daughter. It is, in fact, a full-fledged biopic, at times a compelling and disheartening tale of an individual whose life’s work would indefinitely change the fields of science. [...]
Metaphors often work for their ability to succinctly capture and elucidate a complex idea, employing more accessible terminology and concepts than their perhaps obscure counterparts for which they stand. Too stretch a metaphor to its logical conclusion might come across as tedious or, worse, a dead horse beating contest. The inquisitive conceit of Cold Souls [...]
A blend of politics, the Mafia, and concentrated, modern, aristocratic Italian culture, Il Divo is a biopic on Giulio Andreotti, seven time Prime Minister of Italy, whose life is shrouded in secrecy and ambiguity, with plenty of wit to boot. Paolo Sorrentino writes and directs this calculated and highly entertaining film, a product of keen foresight and [...]
Few know how to do psychological thrill rides like Scorsese. Evoking (if not channelling) 1991’s Cape Fear, Shutter Island manages to pull off another thriller of extensive scope. Both films allow the score and the camera to set the tone almost entirely in many scenes, in others stripping the score away and returning to conventional camera [...]
A middle-aged, weathered performer who’s down on his luck, strapped for cash, and reaching for the bottle. Haven’t we seen this before? We have. This film wishes it was The Wrestler from 2008. It can’t be The Wrestler for one very simple reason: it tries way too hard to please everybody. Nothing is that hard [...]
Imagine the Godfather trilogy set almost entirely in a prison in France. You now have a pretty good idea of what to expect from Un prophète, both in substance and tonality. This visceral epic depicts the harsh realities of both prison life and the painful truth of being involved in the mafia, whether within or beyond [...]
We know the writings, but few of us know the man behind them, the pen that wrote some of the most beloved and respected books in the Canon of Humanity, among them, War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Unfortunately, the man was caught between two worlds late in life, his family and his Movement, the Tolstoyans. Michael [...]