Woody Allen’s freshest and most potent film in years manages to be much more than an erotic thriller. By Betsy Sherman Woody Allen’s cinema of the past 10 years has been one of quaint fetishes. True, his passion for early jazz resulted in the hilarious “Sweet and Lowdown,” but aside from that movie and the […]
Film
Dance/Movie Review: Heart Throbs — “Ballet Russes”
I enjoyed the movie —- critics from outside the dance world have found Ballet Russes charming, too — but the filmmakers’ real gifts are the oral histories that they collected from these dancers just before it was too late.
The Floundering State of Film Criticism
Ana Rivas sent in this piece on a recent confab at Boston University featuring two film critics – Renata Adler, who for a short time in the ’60s was a film critic for The New York Times and A.O. Scott, who is the current chief film critic for the paper. The conversation contained some interesting […]
Film Commentary: A Touch of Awe
At a time when special effects in films are increasingly computerized, it is inspiring to be reminded that images can be more than surfaces that thrill. A festival of movies by the master of the silent cinema, F.W. Murnau, will screen at the Museum of Fine Arts and Harvard Film Archive (with support from the […]
Film Review: “North Country” — Of Sex and Harassment
The new film North Country gives superb dramatic life to a fictionalized version of the first class-action sexual harassment lawsuit in the U.S. By Betsy Sherman Niki Caro’s last movie on female empowerment, Whale Rider, was about an exotic culture and centered on an irresistible girl with royal blood in her veins. Caro’s new film […]
Film Commentary: The Cinema of Japanese Mikio Naruse — Pitfalls of Desire
By Betsy Sherman The films of the neglected Japanese master Mikio Naruse spotlight the plight of women on the margins of society. “Mikio Naruse: A Centennial Tribute” will be screened from Sept. 28 through Oct. 30, 2005 at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA and from Sept. 30 through Oct. 10, 2005 at […]
Film Review: Spin Crazy
The critically acclaimed documentary “Rize” claims to be about a new form of hip hop dancing, called “krumping,” that transcends commercialism. By Debra Cash The commercial calculation of MTV, smoggy and as near at hand as central LA, lurks in the margins of the new critically admired hip hop dance documentary, “Rize.” The film examines […]
Movie Nation
Critic David Thomson says the movies have profoundly shaped America, and not always for the better. “The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood” by David Thomson. (Knopf) By Tim Riley The title of David Thomson’s provocative new history of film comes from a trenchant passage in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel “The Last Tycoon”: “You can […]