The Venice architecture and lively crowd scenes make an enchanting world for these characters. The film Casanova, with a screenplay by Kimberly Simi and Jeffrey Hatcher, cinematography by Oliver Stapleton, production design by David Gropman, and music by Alexandre Desplat,…
A review of In Search of a Brilliant White Cloud by Simon van der Heym
There’s something plodding about some of the recounting of Eric’s business transactions—and yet they’re valuable: I understood his business and his mind better after knowing his management concerns: though he had made mistakes as a husband and father, mistakes involving…
A review of The Wedding Date
There is humor in how easily others accept the lead characters pretense of being a couple, in how easily people are fooled. However, as the film’s wedding festivities occur, various painful and sordid secrets are revealed regarding Messing’s character’s family and friends, and the fraudulently attached couple become genuinely involved with each other.
A review of In Good Company
In Good Company is not innovative in style or theme, but it is germane to how we live now. Films are fantasies that require of us money, time, and belief, and sometimes in those fantasies are glimpses of what is real.
A review of Being Julia
Somehow, the film came alive for me once Julia’s affair with the young man becomes more unstable, especially when we see how her offstage tears do not always mean vulnerability but are sometimes just for effect. Her response to what threatens her onstage and off is what made the film fun.
A review of Meet the Fockers
Surprisingly, it is Ben Stiller, who so wanted Hoffman and Streisand in the film, who does not convey enough love for his parents—and that is because he does not convey enough feeling of any kind in the film. I found…
A review of Schultze Gets the Blues
Schultze Gets the Blues arrives on these shores virtually unannounced; and so the pleasure one gets from it is unexpected and one is quietly grateful. Its comedy is born of the quotidian details of life, eccentric personality, sudden surges of genuine feeling, friendship, bemusement, unfamiliarity with strange customs, and the dramatized observation that sometimes things do fall well into place.
A review of Nietzsche, Godfather of Fascism? by Jacob Golomb and Robert S. Wistrich, eds.
The editors say that Nietzsche’s philosophy cannot be simplified, but that has happened periodically; and his work has been utilized by both conservatives and radicals. (It may be an irony that so accessible a writer requires interpreters.) Nietzsche’s high regard…
A review of Out of Whiteness: Color, Politics, and Culture by Vron Ware and Les Back
The commentary in the book is consistently intelligent and informed, featuring wide-ranging references, historical and current, and the tone of the book is austere; but this project seems drenched in a self-conscious piety, a dull redundancy of fact, and oddly…
A review of The Little Prince (audio) by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
This latest audio version, read in a lucid and calm BBC voice by actor John Gaden, is beautifully set out, with exquisite and carefully chosen classical music between each chapter. The music is played by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and…