All posts by Ryan Brown »
Zero Dark Thirty | Review
Mourning the Mythic: Revenge has no Taste in Bin Laden Hunt Film Director Kathryn Bigelow willfully reigns in her own mythologizing instincts in the harrowing ‘Zero Dark Thirty‘ to present an unmediated “real reality”
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Flight | Review
Zemeckis’ ‘Flight’ is no Thriller, just Lazy 12-step Evangelism In Hollywood, is AA the new Scientology? Director Robert Zemeckis’ attempt at a “grown up” movie, Flight has the propagandistic tone and telos you’d expect
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Passion, Amour, Heaven’s Gate: 2012 NYFF Recap
This year’s 50th anniversary edition of the New York Film Festival conserved many of the signature tenets that have earned it a prestigious reputation, while also continuing its recent (and at times unfortunate) marketing-driven
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Not Fade Away | Review
Sopranos creator Chase stumbles with 60s coming-of-age rock-n-roll tale Trading off coming-of-age clichés with band-on-the-rise clichés, ‘Sopranos’ creator David Chase’s 60s-set Not Fade Away follows kids in suburban New Jersey trying to make it
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Life of Pi | Review
Bengali Buoyancy: CGI impresses, but story falls short in Ang Lee’s adventure The highlight of Ang Lee’s 3D, CGI-laden adrift-at-sea fantasy film Life of Pi might be the long, leisurely opening credit-sequence montage of
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Ornette: Made in America | Review
A high point for U.S. manufacturing: Jazz genius Ornette Coleman Shirley Clarke’s 1984 documentary ‘Ornette: Made in America’ is a portrait of music visionary and harmolodic high priest Ornette Coleman, a “free jazz” saxophonist
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Side By Side | Review
Film vs. digital doc obscures message with overt Hollywood deference From the opening Oscar broadcast-style montage of iconic movie clips (apparently it is only Hollywood, and not international cinema, that was able to “inspire
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Neil Young Journeys | Review
Walk with him: Neil Young makes Canada shake in Demme’s concert film On R.E.M.’s farewell masterpiece ‘Collapse Into Now,’ Michael Stipe channels the deep need of human beings to make sense of their lives
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Unforgivable | Review
Téchiné explores family ruptures through a noir lens Veteran French director André Téchiné’s (‘Wild Reeds,’ ‘Les Voleurs’) Unforgivable is a deceptively nuanced story that skirts the edges of a crime thriller, without ever cracking
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The Color Wheel | Review
Don’t Believe The Color Wheel’s Promise to “entertain you with wit and charm the entire ride” It’s hard to think of a movie more undeserving than Alex Ross Perry’s ultra-indie narcissistic exercise ‘The Color Wheel’
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God Bless America | Review
Bobcat Goldthwait’s pop culture manifesto fires at easy targets Writer-director Bobcat Goldthwait’s cartoonishly violent screed against cultural debasement comes from the right place but heads into hypocrisy. Goldthwait’s surrogate in ‘God Bless America’ is
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The Connection (1962) | Review
Shirley Clarke’s Infamous 1962 mock-doc on Junkie Squalor gets Restored ‘The Connection,’ Shirley Clarke’s 1962 mock-documentary exposé of New York’s heroin addict sub-culture, has gained a reputation as an era-defining polemic due in great
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Celine and Julie Go Boating | Review
Jacques Rivette’s 1974 Phantasma Frees Cinema from its Cage One afternoon in a sleepy Paris park, fanciful librarian Julie traces an occult symbol in the gravel and—poof!—the beautiful and mysterious Celine appears. It’s the
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The Perfect Family | Review
Turner’s Classic Movies were far Superior to this Insipid Comic Family Drama Kathleen Turner attacks the lead role in Anne Renton’s ‘The Perfect Family’ as if it were actually worthy of her. It isn’t.
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The Deep Blue Sea | Review
Terence Davies’ post-war love affair just lies there Writer-director Terence Davies yearns to orchestrate a swelling reverie of doomed love in the post-war British romance ‘The Deep Blue Sea,’ but a rusty plot, overwrought
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4:44 Last Day On Earth | Review
Forget the hype: Ferrara’s end-of-the-world reverie puts other apocalypse movies to shame The countdown to the apocalypse becomes a celebratory wake in Abel Ferrara’s transcendent 4:44: Last Day on Earth. Eschewing sci-fi escapism for
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The Kid With a Bike | Review
The Dardenne brothers’ neo-realist fable captivates The latest movie from Belgian co-directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne is a unique combination of ethnographic observation and allegorical fable. After 11-year-old problem child Cyril is coldly abandoned
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Policeman | Review
Israeli vs. Israeli terrorist drama is a timely, thrilling provocation The opening scene of Israeli writer-director Nadav Lapid’s subversive, original terrorist drama Policeman is a precise snapshot of nationalistic delusion. A group of macho
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"Ron and I wanted to make a film that looked at what it means to be an outsider and we wanted to explore what it takes to reach out to someone whose life is very removed from your own."
