Grindhouse Releasing has a Bluray of Frank Perry and Burt Lancaster‘s The Swimmer (’68) streeting on 3.11. A strange, sterile adaptation of a John Cheever short story that appeared in The New Yorker in July 1964, The Swimmer is easy to admire but all but impossible to like. It has a decidedly cold and spooky … Read more
Paolo Sorrentino makes eye-bath films. His lustrous visual swooning began to intensify, I feel, with 2013’s The Great Beauty, and was fully maintained in Youth, Loro and The Hand of God. But there’s a limit to this kind of spell-weaving, and Sorrentino’s Parthenope, which I saw late last night, is exhibit #1. Two actresses portray … Read more
When I first heard about Grindhouse Releasing’s Bluray of The Swimmer, I had an inkling that Chris Innis‘s 150-minute “Story of The Swimmer” doc might be the most interesting aspect. Well, I watched it last night and can say without hesitation that it definitely is. (I’m not a huge fan of the film itself.) Innis … Read more
To go by this just-released trailer, The Reader, it would seem, is a reasonably strong acting-honors thing for Kate Winslet because she plays someone who sharply defines herself in terms of emotional need (i.e., an affair with a younger guy) and by being a good Nazi guard. Whereas in Revolutionary Road she’s playing a ’50s … Read more
This high-def version of the new trailer for Sam Mendes‘ Revolutionary Road (Paramount Vantage, 12.26) tells you pretty much what the film is without the particulars or the last two beats. Miserable, lost and sinking in surburbia. Richard Yates, John Cheever, John Updike, etc. I understand the whole flight-to-the-suburbs mentality of the ’50s as well … Read more
I’ve been kept out of Spider-Man 3 press screenings (I plan on catching it commercially on Saturday in Manhattan), but last night I finally saw Lucky You, the Eric Bana-Drew Barrymore-Robert Duvall poker movie that’s being thrown up against the Sam Rami behemoth as a kind of sacrificial lamb. Warner Bros. is calling it counter-programming, … Read more
Chris Rock‘s I Think I Love My Wife (Fox Searchlight, 3.16) isn’t over-the-moon great, but it isn’t half bad. The one-sheet tells you it’s a generic marital infidelity comedy and it certainly has the lightness of tone that goes with the form, but it also has some mildly surprising grace notes and side-intrigues that you … Read more
Year’s Best Trailer Stop what you’re doing and click on this trailer for Todd Field‘s Little Children (New Line, 10.6). It’s probably the best trailer for a dramatic film I’ve seen this year, no shit. It really grabs you, and it’s almost all about the sound. No music, almost no talk, no story. All you … Read more