I think it’s possible that Steven Soderbergh will never make another great movie. I don’t mean to imply that his efforts won’t be significantly better than most of what crosses multiplex screens, or that he won’t continue to be one … Continue reading I intentionally wrote it out to be an illegible mess
Trouble the Water (Carl Deal and Tia Lessin, 2008). It would be easy to make a documentary about the devastation Hurricane Katrina brought to New Orleans and the equally disastrous governmental response that is grounded in apoplectic anger, especially since indignation seems to be the default starting point for many current non-fiction filmmakers. Deal and Lessin create something more delicate, more nuanced, more complicated, and, because of these qualities, far more fascinating. The hook of the film’s first half is on-the-scene camcorder footage taken by Ninth Ward resident Kimberly Rivers Roberts as her neighborhood and then her home floods during … Continue reading Oh the movie never ends, it goes on and on and on and on
The Bucket List (Rob Reiner, 2007). When I write these “catch-up reviews” posts, I present the films strictly in the order I watched them. That’s not the case with Rob Reiner’s latest, however. As I perused my list, I realized that I had neglected to write about this at the point I watched it. I offer this piece of information not because the inside details of my methodology are especially scintillating, but because it ably illustrates that this film is completely forgettable. Jack Nicholson plays his stock character: the careening, carousing, glinting little devil. Morgan Freeman plays his stock character: … Continue reading In Hollywood where all the lights are low and truth’s as rare as the winter snow
Coffee for Two 