by Jamie on March 29, 2009
Ben Kingsley, Penelope Cruz, Patricia Clarkson and Peter Sarsgaard star in Elegy based on a Phillip Roth novel. Need I say more?
Kingsley plays a droll, urbane and steely professor at Columbia—the smartest guy in the room. He is felled by the otherworldly beauty, charisma and decency of Penelope Cruz. Kingsley brilliantly plays smug, cutting, humiliated and self-loathing in equal measures.
His scenes with best friend, Dennis Hopper (a Pulitzer prize winning poet!), are riveting—a window into the psyche of a certain strata of male. Patricia Clarkson is fearless as ever. Pete Sarsgaard burns through his scenes.
The dark genius of Roth is his finely honed dialog, brilliant political asides and incisive male characterizations. Even better, his work is plot driven. I find myself imploring Kingsley to “get over yourself.” It is powerful and gratifying when he finally does.My best measure of a dark and compelling story; 4:45 am running time be damned, I am staying up to learn what next will happen.
by Jamie on February 26, 2009
Slings and Arrows is a 3 season Canadian television series about a quirky (but not too quirky) theatre company, The New Burbage Theatre. Each season the actors mount a Shakespearian play, along with other events. The plays are luminous; the stagings inspired. We feel the singular exhilaration of live theatre. The writing is smart, dark, witty and heartfelt. The actors love, rage, sob, behave pretentiously and sometimes fail to pay taxes. The humor builds slowly and sneaks up on you-a LOL moment (without the irony.)
Slings and Arrows stars Paul Gross and Martha Burns, very attractive, middle aged actors who happen to be married in real life. All of the actors, young (Rachel McAdams, Sarah Polley) and not so young are terrific.
We are privy to the nuts, bolts and complexity of staging a play, the true passion of so many actors and the grandeur of Shakespeare.
by Monica on February 17, 2009
Getting your movies in the mail is fabulous. But every once in a while, I am forced to step into the video store when the movie sent just stinks. So it’s such a beautiful thing to go in after 9pm (when all the newly released have been stripped from the shelves) and find a gem. The Edge of Heaven was one of those “I think I read about this one” movies that caught my eye by it’s graphically pleasing cover. It’s a wonderful film with a captivating narrative. And being the special features nerd that I am, I was so fascinated by the back story on Faith Akin the director that I had to run and put his first big film Head-On on my Blockbuster queue. The reward for in store research! You Tube Preview
