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Reviews: March 2009 Archives
American Earnestness and a French Soufflé
By Glenn Kenny on 03/25/2009
A cursory look at the filmography of writer-director Ramin Bahrani -- and by "cursory," I mean one not involving actually viewing any of his films -- will suggest to many that he's the kind of filmmaker who specializes in the oft-dreaded Movie That Is Good For You. His films invariably deal with cross-cultural exchange, or lack thereof; his characters are strangers in strange (albeit torn-from-today's-headlines) lands. They are immigrants looking for ways of belonging, foreigners trying to make peace with their obscure pasts and other species of societal outcasts. A possible précis for Bahrani's latest picture, "Goodbye Solo," wouldn't have... MORE »
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The Trouble With Man Dates
By Glenn Kenny on 03/18/2009
Filed under: ReviewsThe first thing John Hamburg's "I Love You, Man" teaches us is that the mean time between the Style section of the New York Times heralding a fake trend and the creation of a Hollywood comedy predicated on that fake trend is about four years. It was in April of 2005 that the Times published an article entitled "The Man Date," which made the staggering observation that two men can have dinner and see a movie and not have sex with each other afterwards. Who knew? All those years I was doing it wrong! No wonder it took me so... MORE »
Recession, Depression and Just Plain Depressing
By Glenn Kenny on 03/11/2009
Filed under: ReviewsAfter a couple of months that for all intents and purposes defined "moribund," actual moviegoing, at least in the major cities, is getting interesting again, with several masterworks or near-masterworks creeping into theaters. Jan Troell's scrupulous, beautiful "Everlasting Moments," Olivier Assayas' genuinely Renoir-esque "Summer Hours" and Philippe Garrel's blunt, idiosyncratic "Frontier of Dawn" are all exceptionally exciting and rewarding pictures, and the fact that they're all being distributed by the sister company of the one that's hosting me as a critic this month looks...well, funny, I know. What can I tell you? IFC Entertainment's acquisitions folks have excellent taste, and... MORE »
From Russia With Obviousness
By Glenn Kenny on 03/04/2009
Filed under: ReviewsSomewhere between the 40- and 60-minute marks of Nikita Mikhalkov's "12," a sparrow flies through a window into the school gymnasium that's serving as an ad hoc jury room for a supposedly routine Moscow homicide case. This is unusual for one or two reasons, the most obvious of which is that it's the dead of winter. (The window isn't open, mind you; it's broken, as is forcefully pointed out by one juror who sees the gym's sorry shape as emblematic of "40 years of running in place.") This ups the ante for what's already shaping up to be an overstuffed... MORE »
