Natalie Wood was a magnificent actress whose body of work has sadly been overshadowed by her tragic death. WHAT REMAINS BEHIND seems to want to correct that, but as it turns out it doesn’t. — I believe it’s called the classic “bait and switch”. You solicit someone’s interest with a perfectly harmless, maybe even well presented, pitch. And before you know it you’re being sold the worst type of snake oil. If the salesman is good enough, you’ll swallow it all, hook, line and sinker…

Or how LAST AND FIRST MEN and BAD TALES suggested ominous previews of what is to come in a festival that everyone saw as a harbinger for a better future — (continued from here) I still have “soullessness” as a topic to discuss in this Berlin write-up, but bear with me: we all left the Berlinale bubble to come home to, yes, the infamous coronavirus, news of which had been trickling during the event’s ten days but only really started gushing…

Where I discuss the American embassy to the 2020 Berlinale and fawn over FIRST COW and NEVER RARELY SOMETIMES ALWAYS — (continued from here) For many people, a festival like Berlin may very well be the only place you’ll actually get to see some movies theatrically. Shocking as it may seem, the big art-house turnout for the 2020 edition means many of these titles, coming from non-industrial local cinemas unaffiliated with…

Where I set the scene for my memory journal of the 2020 Berlin Film Festival, and register my disappointments with this year’s winning entry — Among other things, I see films for a living, and sometimes I travel to film festivals to cover the event — that is, to see films. By my count, I’ve seen around 30 films in this year’s Berlin Film Festival, a 10-day event generally considered one of the “big three”…

I have no idea what Robert Eggers’ THE LIGHTHOUSE actually is, other than a strikingly realised fever dream of insecurity, gaslighting and thuggish seagulls. What’s not to like? — In conversation with a friend of mine on the merits (or lack thereof) of The Lighthouse, he pointed out that Robert Eggers’ sophomore feature is very much a “look at me!” kind of film. …

LES MISÉRABLES, Ladj Ly’s Oscar-nominated Cannes award-winner, is a powerful indictment of structural neglect in the Parisian projects disguised as a police procedural — Here’s what is so interesting about Ladj Ly’s Les Misérables: it’s a problem picture that makes clear there is no solution if you’re part of the problem. …

Noah Baumbach’s MARRIAGE STORY is a tale of divorce as an unwitting slow-motion disaster Go ahead, say it. Marriage Story is Kramer vs. Kramer, half a century later (and what does it mean when the other film we think about when we think about divorce is half a century old?)…

FOSSE/VERDON isn’t about Broadway, but an impressionistic, absorbing take on life as art and art as life, told like a fragmented sensory puzzle — Yes, I know, I’m being evil. One singular sensation is the opening line from One, a song from A Chorus Line, the musical that opened opposite Chicago in the mid-seventies Broadway, out-earned it, out-Tony-ed it and out-ran it. Maybe a better title should have been All That Jazz — but…

Greta Gerwig’s LITTLE WOMEN is irresistible, moving, full of life — the perfect embodiment of the ideal of America — Allow me to quote from Ol’ Blue Eyes. “What is America to me? A name, a map, or a flag I see?” It was a somewhat forgotten 1942 song that Frank Sinatra sang in a pro-tolerance post-WWII short by Mervyn le Roy. …