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Top Ten Everything

January 2, 2017 in Book Matters, Essays, Film Matters, Listing, Reviews

Today’s kind of an intersticial day, so I’m revving up by sharing all the commentating and writing I did during the 2016 holidaze.

I reviewed Fences, Denzel Washington’s adaptation of the August Wilson play; Julieta, Pedro Almodóvar’s adaptation of three Alice Munro stories; Neruda, Pablo Larraín’s film about the Chilean poet and dissident; 20th Century Women, Mike Mill’s homage to his mum; All We Had, Katie Holmes’ adaptation of Annie Weatherwax’s novel; and Silence, Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of Shusaku Endo’s novel. As well, I named my top ten films and top ten adaptations, and the most creative adaptations, and spoke with Jack Rico and Mike Sargent about 2016 film on Rico’s Highly Relevant podcast, and reviewed the end of the year’s best on Talking Pictures, the NY1 show on which I appear weekly. Perhaps the piece I’m most proud of (and was the least read) is Who’s Reading Who, about the hazards of racial identification in literature —especially YA novels.

Thank you as ever for coming along on this ride, Sirenaders. Happy happy new non-Jew year!

The Ten Best Adaptations of 2016

December 30, 2016 in Book Matters, Film Matters, Listing, Reviews

Some years it seems every critically touted film is a literary adaptation. This year has not been one of them. So many year-end top-ten lists boast original screenplays that it seems Hollywood is finally trusting its writers. What we’ve lacked in volume, however, we’ve made up for in creativity, playing witness to a host of hidden gems, sly winks, unlikely translations, and flat-out jaw-droppers. It’s also been an especially women-focused year – both behind and in front of the lens. All in all, while assembling her annual list of the year’s best adaptations, this lady critic has realized she’s got zero complaints.

10) “Denial”
The Holocaust is hardly a new topic in cinema, but Holocaust denial had never been tackled before Mick Jackson’s able adaptation about Holocaust denier David Irving’s 1990s libel lawsuit against American academic Deborah Lipstadt, played by Rachel Weisz in an orange perm, pantsuit, and braying New York Jewish accent. (Irving is played with feral glee by the great Timothy Spall.) Channeling a lively fortitude that challenges legal and moral relativism, this is an eminently satisfying procedural thriller about that rare moment when the system actually worked for David rather than Goliath. Continue Reading →

Melodrama, Distilled: ‘Julieta’

December 27, 2016 in Book Matters, Feminist Matters, Film Matters, Reviews

“Julieta,” Pedro Almodovar’s adaptation of the Alice Munro Runaway short stories “Chance,” “Soon,” and “Silence,” was meant to be his English-language debut. Instead, he rechristened the protagonist Julieta and swapped out Vancouver for Madrid, where he contrasted her quiet despair with the bright colors and patterns that are not only that city’s trademark but the Spanish writer/director’s trademark as well.

If at this point you are thinking, “Gosh, I didn’t know Almodovar had a new movie, let alone that he had adapted Alice Munro,” rest assured you are not the only one. Early festival circuit responses were so lukewarm that its regular theatrical release was buried, and it didn’t even make the Academy Award’s foreign-language short list. Certainly this film has not made any critical top-ten lists except my own. For while I agree with critics who claim this is “not Pedro’s best,” I happen to think his best film (“Todo Sobre Mi Madre”) is one of the best films ever made. “Julieta” is merely one of the best films of 2016. Continue Reading →

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy