AltWeeklies Wire
Strike Up the Bandnew
Eran Kolirin, the 34-year-old writer-director of The Band's Visit, has a sense of humor as dry as Bet Hatikva's arid desert wind and is too smart to bore us with ham-fisted humanistic bromides.
L.A. Weekly |
Scott Foundas |
12-07-2007 |
Reviews
Tags: Eran Kolirin, The Band's Visit
John Cusack Enters the Iraq Weepstakesnew
Grace is Gone wants to massage liberal sensibilities about the war without alienating the church-going, Wal-Mart-shopping Middle Americans who might see, in Stanley Phillips, a reflection of themselves.
L.A. Weekly |
Scott Foundas |
12-07-2007 |
Reviews
Tags: Grace is Gone, James Strouse
James Marsden: Low Profile and Loving Itnew
"I'm more comfortable with the bar set low," he says with a flash of his milky-white smile. "If expectations are low, you can only impress people."
L.A. Weekly |
Scott Foundas |
12-04-2007 |
Profiles & Interviews
Iron 'Butterfly'new
There is more directing per square inch of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly than one is likely to find in any other movie released this year.
L.A. Weekly |
Scott Foundas |
12-04-2007 |
Reviews
Family Matters in 'Margot at the Wedding'new
Everyone is on the brink of something in Noah Baumbach's latest -- marriage, divorce, puberty -- and by the time one character huffs, "I'm out of breath," you'll have a reasonable idea of how she feels.
L.A. Weekly |
Scott Foundas |
11-26-2007 |
Reviews
Tackling Pop Culture's Greatest Enigmanew
I'm Not There turns out to be a triumph of intellect and cinematic imagination that feels light rather than heavy, and such a novel approach to film biography as to leave every Ray and Walk the Line looking especially clueless.
L.A. Weekly |
Scott Foundas |
11-26-2007 |
Reviews
Tags: I'm Not There, Todd Haynes
'Southland Diaries': Re-Cut but Not Improvednew
Richard Kelly seems to think that to merely mention Fallujah or global warming -- or to name a bank after Karl Rove -- is the same as actually having an opinion about them, and his all-you-can-eat buffet of cinematic in-references operates on pretty much the same superficial level.
L.A. Weekly |
Scott Foundas |
11-16-2007 |
Reviews
Tags: Richard Kelly, Southland Tales
'Redacted' Never Flinches From the Casualties of Warnew
Brian De Palma is angry, about the war in Iraq and about the fact that his Iraq movie, Redacted, has fallen victim to the very censorship it is, in part, a reaction against.
L.A. Weekly |
Scott Foundas |
11-16-2007 |
Profiles & Interviews
Tags: Brian De Palma, Redacted
Michael Haneke Over Americanew
Some great directors begin in TV, like Austrian Michael Haneke. Eight of his TV films have been subtitled into English and are touring North America for the first time as part of the Boston University – curated retrospective "Michael Haneke: A Cinema of Provocation."
L.A. Weekly |
Scott Foundas |
11-09-2007 |
Profiles & Interviews
Tags: Michael Haneke
Coen Brothers to Audience: 'Hold Still'new
The Coen brothers transcend themselves with No Country for Old Men.
L.A. Weekly |
Scott Foundas |
11-09-2007 |
Reviews
Lee Chang-Dong Lets the Sunshine Innew
South Korean filmmaker illuminates life's emotional twists and turns.
L.A. Weekly |
Scott Foundas |
11-02-2007 |
Profiles & Interviews
Tags: Lee Chang-Dong, Secret Sunshine
Seeing the Light with Director Carlos Reygadasnew
Reygadas' third feature, Silent Light, is in some ways his most audacious undertaking yet: a drama of marital and spiritual crisis set in a modern-day Mennonite community on the outskirts of Chihuahua, filmed entirely in the German-derived Plautdeitsch language.
L.A. Weekly |
Scott Foundas |
11-02-2007 |
Profiles & Interviews
Tags: Carlos Reygadas, Silent Light
Robert Redford and the Facade of a Nationnew
Redford is once again traversing the chasm between the American dream and the American reality in a new film that meets the War on Terror and a grab bag of other sociopolitical issues head-on.
L.A. Weekly |
Scott Foundas |
11-02-2007 |
Profiles & Interviews
Tags: Lions for Lambs, Robert Redford
Sidney Lumet's Long Journeynew
The venerable director returns with a devilish thriller.
L.A. Weekly |
Scott Foundas |
10-26-2007 |
Profiles & Interviews
'Road' to Hellnew
Terry George's latest comes with plenty of reservations.
L.A. Weekly |
Scott Foundas |
10-19-2007 |
Reviews
Tags: Reservation Road, Terry George
