Film/TV
686 results
Page 63
'Crazy Heart' vs. 'The Wrestler'
Jeff Bridges vs. Mickey Rourke: Kinder, gentler, and less effective
Crazy Heart is yet another “performer on the skids” story, but one with a killer soundtrack and masterful acting by Jeff Bridges. But the film lacks the gut-level truthfulness the less accomplished Mickey Rourke brought to every frame of The Wrestler.
Crazy Heart. A film directed by Scott Cooper, based on a novel by Thomas Cobb. At Ritz at the Bourse, Fourth and Ludlow Sts. (215) 925-7900 or www.landmarktheatres.com,
Also Bryn Mawr Film Institute, Ambler Theater, and local chains.
Articles
3 minute read
"The Hurt Locker' and the endless war
The limits of unflinching realism: One nagging question
 about The Hurt Locker
For its realistic portrait of a bomb squad in Iraq, The Hurt Locker won six Academy Awards, including “Best Picture.” Yet the small truths within this film implicitly condone the larger lies that took us into that war in the first place.
Articles
7 minute read
Jason Reitman's "Up in the Air' (2nd review)
The American Dream meets the Angel of Death
Jason Reitman's Up in the Air is this year's Hollywood morality tale. It's a throwback to Preston Sturges and Howard Hawks— in short, a Depression-era film for our depressed times.
Up In the Air. A film directed by Jason Reitman, from the novel by Walter Kirn. At the Ritz Five, 214 Walnut St. (215) 925-7900 or www.landmarktheatres.com.
Articles
7 minute read
Fritz Lang's "Metropolis,' restored
Metropolis, as Lang intended it
Fritz Lang's futuristic 1927 silent masterpiece, Metropolis, isn't for everyone. But the recent discovery of a missing hour's worth of footage will help untangle some of the film's conundrums.
Articles
3 minute read
In defense of Jane Austen's prose
Jane Austen is still good in bed
Some folks rejoice at the current spate of Jane Austen film adaptations because they find her novels impenetrable. But if Austen's books are such a slog, why have they remained in print continuously for almost 200 years?
Articles
4 minute read
James Ellroy's "Blood's A Rover'
Through an American dream, darkly
James Ellroy's American dream is a high-definition nightmare of total political depravity that infects every character in his fiction, from presidents to bellhops. It is totally fascinating, perhaps because there is the sting of truth at its basis.
Blood's A Rover. By James Ellroy. Knopf, 2009. 656 pages; $28.95. www.amazon.com.
Articles
5 minute read
Jane Austen novels on DVD
Jane Austen is ready for her close-up (and always has been)
Jane Austen's impenetrable prose is difficult to slog through— but her novels translate marvelously to the screen, as two DVD adaptations remind us. This is no accident. Long before the invention of cinema, Austen understood— as, say, Dostoyevsky or Proust or Mailer did not— the power of visual imagery.
Articles
5 minute read
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Howard Zinn and Mary Daly: Up the academy
They rattled our ivory towers
Howard Zinn and Mary Daly, who died last week, shared a penchant for challenging smug academic certainties. To college presidents and deans, they were perennial pests; to society's underdogs, they exemplified what a free society is all about.
Articles
3 minute read
Salinger's "Catcher,' then and now
The power to cut through cant
J.D. Salinger's fundamental resistance to adult delusions spoke powerfully to a high school freshman like me. But his message didn't resonate with everyone, even my age.
Articles
2 minute read
"Avatar' vs. "The Imaginarium'
Technology vs. imagination: The Avatar of Dr. Parnassus
James Cameron's Avatar dazzles us with expensive high-tech special effects. But Terry Gilliam's Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus dazzles us with the more substantive power of human imagination.
Articles
7 minute read