Figuratively, not literally.
December 8, 2016
Midnight Diner
Netflix has come out with a 10-episode season of Midnight Diner, which began as an award-winning manga, then a Japanese TV series and feature film. Like the filmAn this series is quiet, quirky, and offbeat…mixing food, of course, with characters a bit on the edge of Japanese society but entirely recognizable as classic Japanese characters. Tokyo is said to be not so much a big city as a collection of small villages
January 17, 2016
Carol
After our talk about great films*, I decided I needed to go out to the movies more…because I used to enjoy the experience of seeing film in a cinema so much and somewhere along the way, I got out of the habit of it. So I walked over to the Violet Crown and got the last seat for Carol. I was underimpressed. The acting was fine, the period sets and
February 22, 2015
Edge of Tomorrow
Starship Troopers meets Groundhogs Day with a bit of Aliens thrown in.
November 3, 2014
The Tale of Princess Kaguya
かぐや姫の物語 I was lucky to see this in the original Japanese-language version at the +Alamo Drafthouse. From the info I could glean on the Internet about the limited release in other American cities, I was afraid it was going to be the dubbed version. So a big thanks to the +Alamo Drafthouse for showing it in the original language! Taken as a whole (story, visual, and graphics) I think Princess Kaguya is the
September 28, 2014
Guardians of the Galaxy
Bottom line: Great fun for 8-year-olds of all ages and genders.
December 20, 2012
Lincoln
The difficulty with making films about historical characters is that the audience comes armed with prejudice. The face is familiar to us in a way that creates rather than closes a distance. It is a face that stands for something so that the person the face belongs becomes a kind of shorthand for an ideal or a moment in time. That person ceases to be a human being. He is
February 6, 2012
We Need to Talk About Kevin
I had heard great things about Tilda Swinton’s performance. She is a mother racked with guilt and duty. She lives her life in a hollow-eyed state of post traumatic stress. What I wanted most from this movie was a character arc. I was disappointed. In an interview with Swinton that played before the film, she said she most enjoyed playing characters whose basic foundation was shaken–who were forced to change.
December 29, 2011
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol is straight forward action from beginning to end. In fact, it is very much like The Adventures of Tintin and I like them both for the same reason: simplicity. The good guys are good and the bad guys must be stopped. There’s a job to do and our heroes get it done. The focus is on the method not the motive. I also appreciate that Ghost