Jumaat, 10 Julai 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)

Khamis, 9 Julai 2020

Who's That Girl?


Photographer: Ken Van Sickle

Livia Rangel


Mélodie en sous-sol (1963)


A sixtyish career criminal fresh out of jail, rejects his wife's plan for a quiet life of bourgeois respectability and enlists a former cellmate to assist him in pulling off one final score, a carefully planned assault on the vault of a Cannes casino.

Highly entertaining heist thriller is both suspenseful and full of dry humour; Jean Gabin is, as always, a joy to watch.

Maltin**1/2: "Some tense climactic moments."



Nicole Scherzinger


Today's Cat


Rabu, 8 Julai 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."

Ahad, 5 Julai 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