Steven Soderbergh is perhaps our most adventurous filmmaker. He straddles the worlds of big-budget Hollywood and Independent cinema with ease and skill. We never know what kind of film he will do next and, good or bad, Soderbergh always surprises. His latest film is “The Laundromat,” a look at the Panama Papers scandal based ever so loosely on Jake Bernstein’s book “Secrecy World.” Adapted ... more >
Archives for November 2019
ARCHIVES
“The Laundromat”
Not Soderbergh's winningest (by any stretch), Meryl Streep at the top of her art
Directed by Steven Soderbergh
Scorsese’s ‘The Irishman’ is a sprawling masterpiece, Joe Pesci gives memorable performance
Frank, tell us about the old days
Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci
Directed by Martin Scorsese
Scorsese has directed many a cinematic winner. But, with the exception of 2016’s “Silence” (which I found to be brilliant on so many levels) it had been a while since the accolades of brilliance could be applied to this filmmaker. Make no mistake, it is rare when he fumbles, and most of his films have found their way unto my Ten Best lists of their respective years. But over the last decade, ... more >
Mark Landsman: “We have a tabloid president. That’s a very disturbing thing”
"Scandalous: the untold story of the National Inquirer"
Distributed by Magnolia Pictures
Directed by Mark Landsman
Current events overtook documentary filmmaker Mark Landsman even as he was working hard on his film about the National Enquirer and its controversial parent company, AMI. “We had already gotten our seed money together and were out filming when the Ronan Farrow stories broke in the New Yorker” about President Trump’s alleged connections to Enquirer publisher David Pecker’s attempts to “kill” ... more >
Former Senate staffer Daniel J. Jones, at the center for “The Report,” tells us about the torture report the CIA didn’t want you to see (INTERVIEW)
"I [...] get emotional about it because it just is so upsetting that we tortured people"
Adam Driver and Annette Bening
Directed by Scott Z. Burns
Daniel J. Jones worked tirelessly in a nondescript Washington, D.C., room for the better part of a decade, trying to connect the dots between the CIA’s detention and torture of terrorist suspects at black sites and the Bush White House. The Senate staffer, whose work was passionately backed by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), not only had to contend with members of the Senate who would rather ... more >
INTERVIEW: Mati Diop, director of “Atlantics”
Distributed by Netflix and Ad Vitam
Mame Bineta Sane, Ibrahima Mbaye Sope and Traore
The Arab Spring events of 2011 got filmmaker Mati Diop thinking: What if that search for a better life were told from the viewpoint of a teenage girl in Senegal who stayed behind as her sweetheart crossed the seas in search of new opportunity? “We could say the film is following the ‘spring’ of a young woman in terms of the season from… dark to light, and it’s like an openness blooming,” said ... more >
Putting music to film and film to music, to great effect, “Western Stars”
"Western Stars" is also the name of Bruce Springsteen's newest studio album
Co-directed by Bruce Springsteen and Thom Zimny
Cinematography by Joe DeSalvo
Bruce Springsteen and Thom Zimny’s “Western Stars” is more than a concert film. Both structurally and musically, this unique cinema experience is an homage to the life and philosophies of the American Western. The film and album are based on the constant struggle for individualism while maintaining a connection to family and friends, the eternal struggle of the cowboy. Performing all thirteen ... more >
SHE’S JUST A SHADOW (Japanese manga meets grindhouse? Yes, please)
"An orgy of sex and drugs and extreme violence"
Tao Okamoto and Haruka Abe
Directed by Adam Sherman
“Women. No matter how human they seem... they’re just shadows. But on the other hand, aren’t we all?” From the edges of the bizarre and the extremely weird, “She’s Just A Shadow” is truly something else. The matriarch of a Tokyo prostitution empire, married to a vicious and violent pimp, leads her own gang against rival yakuza. All the while, a serial killer prey on her girls and one of her ... more >