Film Reviews

One of the first exploitation films to be shown endlessly during the early days of cable, 1980’s The Exterminator is also one of the more grim entries in the genre. Gory, jaded and ambivalent on the merits of the vigilante, it anticipated Bernard Goetz by a few years.

Picture this: a secluded scientist waits in a checkout line for his new love interest to return with an item. An unusual pickup for him, she had invaded his radio interview about bird flu (he’s an expert) and then asked him to bed when they had drinks.

Antonio Pietrangeli’s 1960 film Adua and her Friends (Adua e le Compagne) explores the end of an era and points to future cultural upheaval.

In the first half of the twentieth century, film was in love with the newspapers. Stories of reporters and publishers abounded, not the least being, of course, Citizen Kane, based on William Randolph Hearst. Viewers laughed (rightfully) at a joke concerning radio in Raoul Walsh’s The Roaring Twenties, though the bit really reflected love for [...]

In his original review of Raising Arizona, Roger Ebert describes Nicolas Cage’s character as having graduated from the “Rooster Cogburn school of elocution.” Even though the critic loved the original film of True Grit, he wasn’t championing Arizona, which he thought to be artificial and distracting in its language. How ironic for him to see [...]

Those who love hearing fashion discussed as serious art will love this documentary, a portrait of the late iconic French designer, Yves Saint Laurent. The film enters the story of Laurent by learning that his sizable art collection will be auctioned by his long-time business and romantic partner, Pierre Berge. Laurent’s legacy, as told by [...]

Few filmmakers have been willing to focus a narrative feature on the 1915 genocide of the Armenians by the Ottoman Turkish military, and it is a shame that the Italian directors Paolo and Vittorio Taviani have dared to venture into this hot button area with an extremely uneven melodrama. The first half of the film [...]

Timed for release in conjunction with the premiere of the latest Tim Burton film, this rarely seen 1966 BBC production from Jonathan Miller takes a radically different approach to the Lewis Carroll landmark. The most significant aspect here is reinventing Wonderland as a warped parallel universe to Victorian England: the story unfolds amid drawing rooms [...]

Gianni Di Gregorio directs and stars in this mild light comedy about a middle-aged unemployed Roman named Gianni who is living with his 93-year-old mother in a condominium apartment. Amidst mounting debts – including an electric bill that has not been paid in three years – Gianni agrees to look after the building manager’s elderly [...]

De Niro’s long since served as an inspiration to Scorsese – it now appears that the paycheck is the actor’s main motivation. He hasn’t worked for the filmmaker since the 1990s, when the former starred in the powerfully creepy remake of “Cape Fear.” In this film, the director tributed classic crime with a modern, more [...]

Unlike other classic 1970s TV games shows, the appeal of “Match Game” had more to do with comedy than competition. Quite frankly, no one tuned in to root for plucky contestants or to get caught up in the addictive nature of the game. Instead, the audience was hypnotized by the show’s offbeat personality – something [...]

By Jessica BaxterSteven Soderbergh is certainly one of the most intriguing directors of all time. He was, and continues to be, a pioneer of independent filmmaking, whilst simultaneously leading a double life as a successful mainstream filmmaker. He makes no apologies for either incarnation. He has no need to. It’s likely that most of the [...]

While I’m a fan of blockbuster, roller coaster ride science-fiction, such as “Star Wars,” I can also appreciate more intimate, cerebral films, like “2001: A Space Odyssey.” The first half of “District 9″ treads in the latter territory, but the second half veers toward the former and stays there. I was left wishing that some [...]

By Jessica BaxterAt 2:30 in the morning, it’s tempting to accept a ride from anyone who seems to be in the ride-giving business. And who knows, maybe it’s your lucky day. But maybe the guy behind the wheel actually has nefarious plans that don’t involve reuniting you with your fluffy duvet anytime soon. “Shuttle” is [...]

Quality roles for John Hurt must be at a severe minimum if the greatly underutilized actor needs to revisit his 1975 triumph as gay icon Quentin Crisp in “The Naked Civil Servant.” This much-belated and wholly unnecessary sequel follows Crisp’s relocation to New York in the early 1980s, where he established himself as a writer [...]

By: Jessica BaxterSo there’s this obscure series of sci-fi films with a bit of a cult following. It’s about a small faction of religious types who rise up against all odds to defeat an evil empire. It’s a six part-series. The first three are kind of terrible with really stiff acting, terrible dialogue, some irritating [...]

“Word Is Out: Stories Of Some Of Our Lives” made an unusual impact when it was first released in 1978. This documentary, helmed by six directors working as Mariposa Film Group, consisted of interviews with 26 gay men and women about their respective experiences in a less-than-tolerant American society. As a milestone in LGBT cinema, [...]

By: Jessica BaxterApart from actual taste, there is nothing more subjective than musical taste. One man’s auditory honey is the most annoying sound in the world to someone else. In the mid-eighties, I thought I hated UB40. I cringed whenever they came on the radio. That said, sometimes a band, known primarily for their album [...]

In many ways, the title for David Barba and James Pellerito’s documentary profile of ice skater Johnny Weir is inappropriate. Weir is less of a pop star than a diva – after all, a pop star is a relatively benign personality who is widely loved, but a diva is a considerable talent that has been [...]

By: Jessica BaxterIn the new film by the Hughes Brothers (“From Hell”), it’s 30 years post-apocalypse and things are hella not cool, you guys. The world is a scorched junkyard full of pockmarked and be-goggled road warriors ready to rape, pillage and eat you. Apparently, this is what the world looks like without God. Fortunately, [...]

Luis Lopez and Trisha Ziff’s documentary focuses on what might be the single most famous photographic portrait of the 20th century: Alberto Korda’s image of the beret-wearing Ernesto “Che” Guevara.The photograph itself was cropped down from a larger picture that showed Guevara at the 1960 memorial service for the victims of the La Coubre explosion. [...]

Originally broadcast on HBO, Thaddeus O’Sullivan’s re-imagining of the rise and fall of Winston Churchill’s wartime government is fueled by Brendan Gleeson’s wonderfully irascible interpretation of the celebrated leader, which won a richly deserved Emmy Award.Outside of capturing the distinctive physical and vocal dimensions of Churchill, Gleeson also taps into the leader’s brutally contradictory personality. [...]

The extraordinary story of Hannah Senesh (1921-1944) is not very well known to most people, so there is reason to be grateful for Roberta Gossman’s wonderful documentary.The daughter of a prominent Jewish family in Budapest, Senesh fled her native country for British-mandated Palestine prior to the outbreak of World War II. In 1943, she joined [...]

By: Jessica Baxter On the surface, it might seem like just another Awkward Michael Cera Comedy. It’s true that element is present, but it’s also so much more. “Youth in Revolt” is the story of a precocious Bay Area teenager named Nick Twisp (Michael Cera) whose affinity for Frank Sinatra and Italian cinema only briefly [...]

The focus of this documentary is the advocacy group Combatants for Peace, which is made up of members of the Israeli Defense Force that refused to go on duty in the occupied territories and former Palestinian resistance fighters who are eager to pursue Gandhian nonviolence as a means of gaining statehood.Members of both sides needed [...]

by Brad Cook“If someone had to be the cartoon of punk rock, it might as well be Sid. He was pretty good at it,” Siouxsie and the Banshees bass player Steve Severin says during this documentary. He later comments: “One of [the Sex Pistols] had to die to make the myth work, and Sid was [...]

What do you think of when you hear the phrase “gay man”? Stereotypes would insist that such individuals are sissified and campy, along the lines of Paul Lynde. Christopher Hines’ documentary “The Bull Factor” is designed to pull down the dreary stereotypes and show that gay men come in masculine shapes and sizes – blue [...]

Katie Cadigan and Laura Murray’s compelling documentary traces how a group of concerned parents created a grassroots program that changed how the medical profession and the wider society viewed schizophrenia. In the post-World War II years, psychiatrists were too ready to dismiss schizophrenia in a pseudo-Freudian manner: it was considered to be the damage created [...]

Phil Grabsky’s documentary covered 25,000 miles across Europe to retrace the life and career of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The good news is that the real Mozart was eons removed from the crass buffoon portrayed by Tom Hulce in the Oscar-winning film version of “Amadeus.” The great news is that the real Mozart was a truly [...]

by Elias Savada While the songs are familiar, I never caught the Broadway show with book by Arthur Kopit and music by Maury Yeston—either the 1982 original directed by Tommy Tune or the 2003 revival, both Tony Award winning productions. Like Mel Brooks’ The Producers, Rob Marshall’s adaptation of Nine reflects a cinema to theater [...]