Friday, July 10, 2020

New Stuff: Norah Jones



Altyn Simpson


ph: Alvaro Beamud Cortes

Timeline (2003)


A group of archaeologists become trapped in the past when they go there to retrieve a friend. The group must survive in fourteenth century France before they can escape back to the twenty-first century.

Quite mindless entertainment, not tethered by any plot coherence let alone the paradoxes of time travel; lots of talent wasted for the fun.

Halliwell (no star): "Risible adventure, so daft to be almost, but not quite, endearing; the performances are beyond redemption."

Maltin**: "Lively, noisy, convoluted story becomes so confusing it's difficult to know who's who, let alone what's what."

Marlijn Hoek


ph: Sune Czajkowski

New Stuff: Mississipi John Hurt



Xiaoni Wang


La figlia di Frankenstein (1971)


When Dr. Frankenstein is killed by a monster he created, his daughter and his lab assistant continue his experiments.

Sleazy and lurid variation on the Frankenstein tale is a typical example for 70s Italian horror, so it offers a lot to see and some Gothic atmosphere, but is plain silly most of the time.

Maltin BOMB: "Poor horror entry..."

Audrey Marnay


ph: Guillaume Roemaet

New Stuff: The New Yorker


(art: Kadir Nelson)

Wednesday, July 8, 2020

Yara Shahidi


A day in the life, Feb 8


A day in the life, Feb 8, window display

Rowan Blanchard


New York


Photographer Charles Clyde Ebbets at work in the 1930s

Debbie Harry


First Lines: Cherie Priest - Boneshaker


She saw him, and she stopped a few feet from the stairs.

Caroline Brasch Nielsen


McLintock! (1963)




Cattle baron George Washington McLintock fights his wife, his daughter, and political land-grabbers.

Another wildly entertaining John Wayne - Maureen O'Hara variation on The Taming of the Shrew. Not suitable for feminists.

On rewatching: Male-bonding festivity looks like they intended to have as much of fun as possible on set and imagined it would reflect onscreen - unfortunately it does.

Halliwell*: "Sub-Ford Western farce borrowed from The Taming of the Shrew, with much fist-fighting and mud-splattering, and rather too much chat in between."

Maltin***: "Rowdy slapstick seldom stops - a giant mud pit free-for-all and a public spanking for O'Hara are just a few of the stops along the way in this Western version of The Taming of the Shrew. Not recommended for feminists."

Sunday, July 5, 2020

Giedre Dukauskaite


Level 16 (2018)


In a highly regimented boarding school, a pair of students discover that things are not as they seem.

Very good dystopian tale, a bit reminiscent of The Handmaid's Tale in its bleak vision of female oppression, successfully conveys an atmosphere of mystery, suppression and dread.

Larsen Thompson


New Stuff: Pere Ubu



Eden Polani


Chappaquiddick (2017)


Depicting Ted Kennedy's involvement in the fatal 1969 car accident that claims the life of a young campaign strategist, Mary Jo Kopechne.

This movie's slickly made with excellent performances, but such a sober, unexcited depiction of the events, it doesn't reveal more than the facts already known.

Lauren Bacall


New Stuff: The New Yorker


(art: Diana Ejaita)

Who's That Girl?


Art: John Kacere