Flicks with The Film Snob

There have been two films this year featuring a ship being hijacked by Somali pirates. This is, of course, a very topical subject. Although both films are good, it’s interesting how different their approaches are. A Hijacking , a film by Danish director Tobias Lindholm, played here briefly earlier this year and is now on DVD. The story concerns a Danish cargo ship in the Indian Ocean, suddenly cap...

It’s remarkable, when you think about it, how few serious American film dramas have dealt with the subject of American slavery. Of course we think of Roots , and there are others…but not many. Maybe slavery is so painful a subject that most filmmakers just don’t want to go there. I think also there’s shame—shame about this huge ugly stain on our history and on our country. Now we have a new film,...

I like directors that can fill a big canvas, make films that you can be immersed in, an experience rather than just an event. Abdellatif Kechiche does that in his new film, and on a subject that is usually smaller scale: young love and the new discovery of passion, emotional and sexual. The film is called Blue is the Warmest Color , and it’s adapted by Kechiche and his co-screenwriter Galia Lacroi...

   The well-crafted drama Mother of George takes place in one of those small communities from overseas transplanted into urban American society, in this case a vibrant group of Nigerians living in Brooklyn. The lengthy and carefully observed opening sequence is of a traditional Nigerian wedding, with its lovely music and shimmering colors. The bride, Adenike, played by Danai Gurira, is glowing wit...

Inequality for All is the title of a documentary by Jacob Kornbluth, which examines the extraordinary disparity in wealth between the richest Americans and the rest of us. The man at the center of the film, who explains this issue in its many aspects, is Robert Reich, world-renowned economist, former Secretary of Labor under Clinton, currently a professor at Berkeley, and a fairly ubiquitous guest...

For your Halloween pleasure this year, I offer the 1943 film I Walked With a Zombie. It’s from the famous horror unit at RKO headed by producer Val Lewton, and in this case directed by Jacques Torneur. Tourneur’s second effort in collaboration with Lewton achieves something like greatness despite a bit of mediocre writing and acting. The story concerns Betsy (played by Frances Dee), a nurse who is...

   Concussion is a film that immerses us in the everyday and mundane, until after a series of questionable decisions by an unsteady main character, we suddenly find ourselves observing an outlandish situation. But this is not in the service of a suspense film as you might assume—the debut film by Stacey Passon explores the intersections of sexuality with both emotional commitment and risk. Robin W...

    I’ve mentioned before how films will come and go, sometimes disappearing after only a week, so that I don’t have a chance to review them on this show, since I don’t want to review a movie that you, the audience, can’t go to see in Tucson. Of course I get my chance eventually when they come out on DVD. Such is the case with a French film that played briefly here last year called Goodbye First L...

Big Deal on Madonna Street , a 1958 film directed by Mario Monicelli, is a spoof of the heist film genre, exemplified by such films as The Asphalt Jungle , The Killing , and especially Jules Dassin’s Rififi . The story goes like this. A jailed ex-boxer, played by Vittorio Gassman, catches wind of a perfect opportunity for a heist—a safe in a pawnshop with an empty apartment next door. When he gets...

Short-Term 12 , the title of a movie written and directed by newcomer Destin Daniel Cretton, is a nickname for a small foster care facility that houses minors for which places haven’t yet been found. The big decisions, of course, are made by social workers and therapists, but the story focuses on the 20-something techs that run day-to-day operations in the place, especially a capable and empatheti...

   The Act of Killing , a documentary film by Joshua Oppenheimer, starts us out with some very minimal historical background. In 1965, the government of Indonesia was overthrown by a military coup. The new dictatorship, with the support of the CIA, initiated a purge of everyone it deemed to be communist—liberals, academics, ethnic Chinese, in fact anyone thought to be critical of the state. Close...

In a World… , the name of the first film written and directed by actress Lake Bell, refers to a famous opening line, used over and over for the previews of coming attractions, or trailers, as they’re called in the industry, usually for big-budget spectacles of some sort. For example, “In a world where good and evil collide, one man will embark on a journey that will change everything.” It was coin...

There are no easy answers or comforting truths in The Attack , a film by Lebanese American director Ziad Doueiri. Filmed in Israel, and based on a novel by the Algerian writer Yasmina Khadra, the story puts us right in the middle of one of the most contentious issues on the planet—the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The results have made ideologues on both extremes angry, and that’s a sign that some...

In a youth-obsessed culture, older people don’t get to play the main characters in movies too often. Still Mine , a Canadian film written and directed by Michael McGowen, is one of the rare examples that doesn’t succumb to trite platitudes or simple-mindedness. It’s based on a true story, and after looking up some of the newspaper articles about the case, it looks to me like the movie adheres pret...