Spoiler Scale (How spoilery is this article on a scale of 1 to 10?):  5   In my 30s, I had two conversations with friends of a like age who were having problems conceiving and were seeking medical intervention.  After they suggested that my disinclination for having children was really born out of selfishness (you know, in that way only friends can), the next ... Read More »

Spoiler Scale (How spoilery is this article on a scale of 1 to 10?):  3   Visitors has no words and no narrative.  It’s just a series of 10- to 40-second black-and-white slo-moed/time-lapsed images, inextricably linked to a haunting Philip Glass score, and pieced together into roughly three movements – all leaving the viewer with only the vaguest impression of the title’s meaning.  It sounds like the ... Read More »

Spoiler Scale (How spoilery is this article on a scale of 1 to 10?):  7   With his first two feature films (Being John Malkovich (1999), Adaptation (2002)) inextricably tied to the irrepressible writer Charlie Kaufman and his last feature built upon a beloved literary property (Where the Wild Things Are (2009)), Her represents the first wholly original work by Spike Jonze as both ... Read More »

10. To the Wonder.   In a year that included the likes of Ain’t Them Bodies Saints and The Grandmaster, perhaps no popular film justifies use of the cliché “visual storytelling” more than writer/director Terence Malick’s To the Wonder.  The underlying narrative (such that it is) covers the life cycle of a love affair (said lovers played by Ben Affleck and Olga Kurylenko).  Alternating between the idyllic and the realistic, the dialogue (such that ... Read More »

Spoiler Scale (How spoilery is this article on a scale of 1 to 10?)  4   With only the slightest bit of soft focus, writers/directors Joel and Ethan Coen take us back to the Greenwich Village folk scene circa 1961 to get Inside Llewyn Davis.  Solo singer/guitarist Llewyn (Oscar Isaac) finds himself with one foot in the future and one foot in the past.  As a sad wanderer, he is acutely attuned to the freedoms ... Read More »

Spoiler Scale (How spoilery is this article on a scale of 1 to 10?): 3   Some Velvet Morning (presumably no relation to the band) is composed entirely of a single conversation between an escort, Velvet (Alice Eve), and her former john, Fred (Stanley Tucci), who has left his wife and shown up with his bags at her apartment.  Initially, the ... Read More »

When it comes to annual cycles in the film industry, concepts tend to show up in pairs – two tornado films (1996), two volcano films (1997), on and on up to this years’ end-of-the-world comedies (This Is the End and The World’s End).  Unfortunately, 2014 will see the trend continue with two great directors Darren Aronofsky (The Wrestler (2008), Black Swan (2010)) and Ridley Scott (Alien (1979), Black Hawk Down (2001)) devoting ... Read More »

Spoiler Scale (How spoilery is this article on a scale of 1 to 10?):  9  In November 2012, the Criterion Collection released the Blu-Ray edition of what is arguably director Akira Kurosawa’s most intriguing film, Rashōmon (1950), with a new digital restoration with an uncompressed monaural soundtrack, an audio commentary by Kurosawa scholar Donald Richie, a documentary with the cast and crew of Rashōmon, excerpts from a documentary on ... Read More »

I just finished viewing The Heat, the most recent buddy-cop genre flick featuring Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy.  And in light of the current buzz in the film community, I could not help but notice how The Heat is one of the supposedly few 2013 movies that pass the “Bechdel Test,” which has apparently become the proxy for detecting gender bias in film.  In case you have not heard, to ... Read More »

Spoiler Scale (How spoilery is this article on a scale of 1 to 10?):  3 Meanwhile, back in Asgard … In all honesty, if you have seen the first installment of the Thor subfranchise (Thor (2011)), you’ve pretty much seen Thor: The Dark World.  An evil-eyed baddie whose character development consists entirely of a four-minute of prologue (replace “Laufey” with “Malekith”) seeks vengeance against the Kingdom of Asgard, ... Read More »