Gray even found a way to sneak in a few Friday references.
biopic
Posted inArts & Culture
The Brontë Sisters
The film stars Franco-actress standouts Isabelle Adjani (Possession) and Isabelle Huppert (Amour) before they were household names in international cinema. Adjani is Emily, the most recognized of the Brontë sisters; Huppert is Ann, the youngest; and the moral realist in the family and the oldest and least-known, Charlotte, is played by the late Marie-France Pisier […]
Posted inArts & Culture
42
And that’s fine with me. 42 — the number Robinson wore on his uniform — tells an important story that, almost inconceivably, has eluded big-screen treatment since Robinson himself starred in 1950’s The Jackie Robinson Story. Relative unknown Chadwick Boseman (TV’s Persons Unknown) gives a stirring, if uncomplicated, performance as the supremely gifted ballplayer who […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Renoir
It’s not often we get a biopic about one of the master painters, perhaps because the only thing more boring than watching paint dry may be watching someone apply it. Pierre-Auguste Renoir, however, had a rather bawdy explanation of his brush-stroke method, according to the film Renoir. It’s one we can’t print. Hear for yourself […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Hitchcock
Hitchcock, which opens Friday, isn’t a bad movie; it’s just a baffling one. Purportedly about the making of 1960’s Psycho, it winds up a hodgepodge of old-fashioned biopic, bogus psychological thriller and simplistic domestic melodrama. The film, however, is hardly the work of incompetents. Director Sacha Gervasi has an absorbing rockumentary (Anvil: The Story of […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Lincoln
As if the subject alone isn’t worthy of adulation, it comes with a towering pedigree: Oscar-winning director Steven Spielberg (Saving Private Ryan), Oscar-winning actor Daniel Day-Lewis (There Will Be Blood) and a script by Pulitzer-winning playwright Tony Kushner. To its credit, Lincoln has lengthy stretches in which it’s as absorbing as it wants to be. […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life / Telstar: The Joe Meek Story
Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life follows the controversial French singer and songwriter starting in childhood, where his big ears and Jewish genes don’t make for an easy upbringing in Nazi-occupied Paris. The kid hates piano lessons, preferring drawing sophisticated cartoons (some dirty) to music, unless the song is a ditty about cocaine. Those quirks work for […]
Posted inArts & Culture
13
So now, my fellow Americans, the unadventurous among you have the color, English-language, star-packed “13.” And not only is it written and directed by the same guy, Géla Babluani, but it’s also pretty good. I still think you should watch the original, too, although I know you won’t. Sam Riley (you saw him top-lining the […]