It is rare to see the mundane meet the thrilling and the sweet meet the sinister in a way that is as satisfactorily uncomfortable, darkly humorous and oddly heartwarming as is “Fargo.” The film thrives off of the contrasts it creates. In typical Coen brothers style, the directors play with the limits of unconventionality: placing…
Film Review: “The End of the Tour”
“It often seems that the person we encounter in the literary biography could not possibly have written the works we admire,” observes David Foster Wallace, subject of the biopic “The End of the Tour” (2015), in his 2004 review of Edwin Williamson’s “Borges: A Life.” “And the more intimate and thorough the bio, the stronger…
Film Review: “Annie Hall”
Woody Allen appears onscreen, tweed jacket almost blending into the beige background, looking directly into the camera, and begins to speak: “There’s an old joke,” he says, “Um…two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of ‘em says, ‘Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.’ The other one says, ‘Yeah,…
Film Review: “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”
“The possibility of physical and mental collapse is now very real. No sympathy for the Devil, keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride.” As we watch protagonist Raoul Duke (Johnny Depp) recover from an indeterminately long drug binge, it is difficult to determine whether this narration is in reference to his own…
“The Grand Budapest Hotel” continues Wes Anderson’s film legacy
Audiences who loved Wes Anderson’s “Moonrise Kingdom” and “The Darjeeling Limited” are sure to be delighted by “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” which, in my opinion, felt like a lovechild between the two. I was moved by a love story and enchanted by a depiction of a faraway land. The plotline of the film is a…