The world is absolutely on fire right now. We feel dumb talking about our petty problems, and, frankly, we should. Yet in our private, off-line worlds we will seek entertainment as relief because we are human and this is how humans behave. To that end, I recommend seeing the new “Ghostbusters” this weekend. My reason is actually political, as I do not think this CGI-addled, badly paced film is worthy of its very fine cast, though the irresistible Kate McKinnon is like a hilarious silent movie unto herself, and Leslie Jones wisecracks with the best of them. (I blame its failings on writer/director Paul Feig, the kind of affable white dude who keeps “failing up” despite his string of unfunny comedies.) My reason is this is one of the first all-female comedies ever bankrolled by a major studio, and big grosses on an opening weekend will mean that other all-female projects will be bankrolled in the future. More than almost ever, paying to see this Hollywood movie will be an act of activism—one you can commit while eating fatty, sugary foods and sitting on your ass in a climate-controlled environment. So go. I ain’t afraid of no ghost but I am terrified of cockocracies.
Archive | Reviews
‘The BFG’: Sparkling, Sputtering
Since the 1980s, Steven Spielberg has strayed far from the family fare that made his name. If it’s a long road from “E.T.: The Extraterrestrial” to “Schindler’s List,” it’s an even longer one to 2014’s talky, admirably unaccommodating “Lincoln.” (Leave it to Spielberg to find the feel-good story of the Holocaust.) And while many of these later-career offerings are solid, I’ve never shaken the conviction that the director is most at home in Boy Wonder mode, when he’s spurring us all to the awe we registered naturally as children. Now he’s tackled “The BFG,” the 1982 Roald Dahl children’s book about London orphan Ruby and a big friendly giant (get the acronym now?). The resulting adaptation is not only pleasurable but pleasurably nasty. Continue Reading →
The Long-Haired ‘Our Kind of Traitor’
You’d think John le Carré books would be easier to adapt. Full of intrigue and elegant melancholy, they seem like ideal cineplex fare. But it takes a crackerjack team to translate the spy novel author’s carefully crafted cynicism onto a big screen without getting lost in his details. The best of the lot may be Fernando Meirelles’s sweeping 2005 take on The Constant Gardener or Tomas Alfredson’s 2011 adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, with Gary Oldman as a retired agent whose fangs have only mildly been filed down by time. “Our Kind of Traitor,” British television director Susanna White’s interpretation of le Carré’s 2010 Cold War rekindling and the latest addition to the le Carré canon, is a slicker animal – different but not necessarily inferior. Continue Reading →