Author: robertmwallis
In Listen To Me Marlon a long-dead legend finally opens up
Whatever happened to Marlon Brando?
Better known in his later years for his onset antics rather than the quality of his performances, it seemed a far leap from the chiseled passion of his early work — The Wild Ones, A Streetcar Named Desire — to the boredom and bloat that marked his final decade.…
Suffragette is a worthy but overly respectable
As with The Imitation Game, which kicked off last year’s London Film Festival, Suffragette — another period drama — is a quintessential work of British cinema. It too tells an important story.
Instead of the huts of Bletchley Park, we find ourselves at an East End laundry circa 1913, the workplace of Maud Watts (Carey Mulligan) and dozens of other industrious women.…
Don’t Grow Up is a conflicted kid torn between arthouse and genre
The challenge with “genre fiction” is how to to blend the recognizable tropes, the cliches even, with new and exciting elements. Take Don’t Grow Up, the latest film from director Thierry Pouiard.
Opening at a mysterious youth facility amidst a misty forest of dark evergreens, six troubled teens find themselves abandoned and alone.…
Ryūzō and His Seven Henchmen is a bit of a rabble
For those among us who know him only for cult TV export Takeshi’s Castle, the news that Takeshi Kitano has just made an absurdist comedy might not be surprising.
For fans of both his double-act “Beat” persona and his work starring in/directing the resurrected Zatoichi franchise, Ryūzō and His Seven Henchmen promises cinematic mana.…
James White is a compelling study of Millennial lostness
James White, the film, is the directorial debut of James Mond, third member of the Borderline Collective (he worked as producer on Sean Durkin’s Martha Marcy May Marlene and Antonio Campos’ Simon Killer).
James White, the character, stunningly captured by Chris Abbott, is a twenty-something washout whose look recalls both Josh Hartnett and Kit Harrington.…
The Martian: by far the best film to maroon Matt Damon in space
Are the 2010s the decade that made space travel cool again?
Gravity swept the Academy Awards back in 2013, Interstellar reminded us of the potential wonders of the universe in a way that no one had arguably done since Kubrick – Marvel even got in on the action with Guardians of the Galaxy.…
Sicario is a moody, sun-bleached thriller set south of the border
Somewhere between the Wild West and Iraq lies Juarez, Mexico.
A brightly colored urban sprawl with a population of just over 1.3 million, in 2008 its murder rate was the highest in the world: 130 per 100,000. According to Sicario, the latest film from director Denis Villeneuve, it’s a city where mutilated corpses hang from overpasses, a warning from the cartels.…
Pan is a wannabe Hook for the Avatar generation
For kids of the ‘90s, Steven Spielberg’s Hook is something of a childhood classic.
Starring the late great Robin Williams as the jaded grown-up Peter Pan and no less than Dustin Hoffman as the dastardly, mustache-twirling Hook — not to mention Dame Maggie Smith’s elderly Wendy and Bob Hoskins’ workaday Smee — it’s pure cinematic confection.…
The Messenger delivers some originality from a hackneyed premise