Herewith my reactions to the “big three” mass audience Hollywood films released in May, now having seen all three. I thought that the best of the three was The Great Gatsby, which, despite some anachronistic touches, did a fairly good job of animating the novel and telling a coherent story with good performances and memorable scenes. In third place, by a long shot, is Iron Man 3, which I found to be virtually incoherent as … <Read More>
Film
Busy Cultural Calendar – Suzuki at the NYP, Don Carlo at the Met, Marlboro Musicians at PSC, The Revisionist at Cherry Lane Theatre, The Lying Lesson at Atlantic Theater Co.
From the title of this posting, you can see that I’ve attended quite a few things over the past few weeks, and I’ve been too busy to write about them individually, so herewith a summing up.
On March 8 I was at the New York Philharmonic to hear Masaaki Suzuki, making his debut conducting the orchestra, in works by Mendelssohn and Johann Sebastian Bach. The program had a nice symmetry, beginning with Bach’s motet “Singet … <Read More>
Zero Dark Thirty
This film was high on my list, but it took a while to find the time to go. I went earlier this week and have been trying to “process” for myself what I think about this film.
Zero Dark Thirty presents a dramatic version of the search for Osama bin Laden, launched after the 9/11/2001 suicide attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The focus is on a particular female CIA agent who, … <Read More>
Promised Land – New Film
Gus Van Sant’s new film, “Promised Land,” with a screenplay by Matt Damon and Jon Krasinski, who co-star in the film, is obviously a labor of love on the part of all concerned, and I found it interesting to watch, but also a bit didactic.
The theater tonight (Wednesday night) was pretty empty, so I suspect that despite the good reviews this one is not doing very well at the box office. But it deserves … <Read More>
Cultural Updates: Some Summer Films & Some Mostly-Mozart
While visiting Mom in Florida, I saw two of the current crop of summer movies: "Ted" and "Total Recall."
"Ted" is the saga of a teddy bear that comes to life and ultimately wreaks havoc in the life of the little boy to whom he is given as a Christmas present. It seems to have had a wildly popular few weeks upon its release, probably because people love the foul-mouthed, raunchy teddy bear, who gets … <Read More>
The Dark Knight Rises – The New Film
Yesterday I was part of the enormous outpouring of U.S. moviegoers who packed the theaters for the opening of "The Dark Night Rises." Undeterred by the news of insanity from Aurora, Colorado, I went with a friend to see an early evening show at the Regal Cinema in Battery Park City. NYPD officers were idling out front, as promised by Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, but I didn't see how that would have prevented a similar … <Read More>
Comments on a selection of summer films…. June/July 2012
The onslaught of "summer films" has begun, and I've attended several over the past few weeks, including "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter," "Moonrise Kingdom," "The Amazing Spiderman," and "To Rome With Love." Actually, "To Rome," the Woody Allen piece, is not specifically a summertime movie; it just coincidentally got released. But the others name above certainly fit the genre – more focused on entertainment than any sort of social commentary. Of the entire lot, I liked … <Read More>
Two Comedies: “To Rome With Love” and “Peter and the Starcatcher”
Here's a contrast. A few days ago I went to see Woody Allen's new film, "To Rome With Love," and yesterday evening I saw Rick Elice's play, "Peter and the Starcatcher." Both comedies, but of a very different sort.
In "To Rome With Love," Woody Allen continues his progression through various European locales (he has in recent years shot films in England, France and Spain), now focusing on Rome – both the Rome of the … <Read More>
Two Comedies: “To Rome With Love” and “Peter and the Starcatcher”
Here's a contrast. A few days ago I went to see Woody Allen's new film, "To Rome With Love," and yesterday evening I saw Rick Elice's play, "Peter and the Starcatcher." Both comedies, but of a very different sort.
In "To Rome With Love," Woody Allen continues his progression through various European locales (he has in recent years shot films in England, France and Spain), now focusing on Rome – both the Rome of the … <Read More>
A Week of Dramatized Biography
This past week I attended three productions that were dramatizations of the lives of real people. On Tuesday, I saw "The Columnist," a play by David Auburn about Joe Alsop, the syndicated columnist who wielded outsize influence in the 1950s and 1960s. On Thursday, I saw "End of the Rainbow," a play by Peter Quilter, about Judy Garland's December 1968 visit to London to perform a series of concerts in an attempted comeback from drug … <Read More>