Remember the joke Woody Allen tells in Annie Hall about the two old women in the Catskills? The gist is this: One woman complains that the food is terrible, the other replies, “I know, such small portions.” Allen’s films in this later part of his career are so innocuous, so wisplike, so slight, that while […]
Ned Lannamann
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West of Eden
Slow West and the possibilities of the western
In the final frames of Slow West, the camera pauses over the bodies of all the characters that have died. In quick, static shots, the audience is reminded of every corpse—those of major characters and incidental figures alike—that contributed to the movie’s body count. That tally is substantial: Slow West is a story of guns […]
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Body and Soul
Keep on Keepin’ On: Clark Terry’s Happy Horn
Jazz has no shortage of tragic tales of abbreviated lives: Bird’s heroin addiction, John Coltrane’s liver cancer, Billie Holiday’s woe-filled history of drink, drugs, and abusive men. What a treat, then, to examine Clark Terry’s lengthy, inspiring life. The St. Louis-born trumpeter/flugelhorn player performed with Duke Ellington and Count Basie, mentored Miles Davis and Quincy […]
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The Jail-y Show
Jon Stewart’s Iranian Prison Drama
Longtime viewers of “The Daily Show” will recognize former Newsweek reporter Maziar Bahari as a frequent guest on the program. In 2009, he appeared in a segment that also featured “Daily Show” contributor Jason Jones pretending to be a spy. It was meant as a joke, but it, in part, led to Bahari’s incarceration. “The […]
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Passing the Audition
Domination and power in Polanski’s Venus in Fur
Roman Polanski’s new film is set in a Paris theater, with a cast of two. Thomas (Mathieu Amalric) is wrapping up auditions for his new play when Vanda (Emmanuelle Seigner) comes out of the rain. She’s coarse and slatternly—the exact opposite of what Thomas is looking for in his leading lady—but once she begins to […]
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A Dead Horse
A million ways to ruin the western
Maybe it’s best to think of Seth MacFarlane as the guy in class who copies your homework. He’s shrewd enough to find a way to pass the class, but he hasn’t done any original work all semester. Let’s look at MacFarlane’s career: His weirdly ripe singing voice is cribbed from Sinatra. His interminably enduring “Family […]
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A Right Bastard
Hey Jude, You’re Wrong for Dom Hemingway
I can see why Jude Law wanted the part of Dom Hemingway—he’s entirely against type for the heartthrob who once played the perfectly bronzed, lean Dickie Greenleaf. Dom, on the other hand, is a burly, boozy, burnsided safecracker on the back end of a 12-year-stint in the pokey. (Do they call prison “the pokey” in […]
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Senior Moments
Not everything’s black and white in Nebraska
Woody Grant (Bruce Dern) is determined to get to Nebraska. He’s received a form letter notifying him that he may have won $1 million, which he’s inclined to accept at face value. All he has to do is go to the sweepstakes office in Lincoln and collect the prize. There are a few obstacles: Woody […]
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You Better Move On
Muscle Shoals botches its amazing story
As we gaze upon lovingly shot close-ups of the Tennessee River, we hear a familiar voice intoning empty platitudes. “‘Magic,” the voice says, “is the word that comes to mind when I think of Muscle Shoals. It’s about alchemy, it’s about turning metal… into gold.” Is that an Irish accent we’re detecting? Oh, Jesus Chri—is […]
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L-I-V-I-N
Dallas Buyers Club is just all right, all right
In addition to being an electrician and a part-time rodeo bull rider, Ron Woodroof was also a career partier—a thorough user of drugs and a prolific womanizer. When he contracted the AIDS virus in 1986, the disease was still, in the public’s eye, very much limited to the realm of gay men. Woodroof overcame not […]