‘White God’ Bites Back
“White God” may be about the adventures of a dog and a young girl but it’s about as far from a Disney tooth-decayer as Ingmar Bergman’s “Scenes from a Marriage” is from the meet-cute Hollywood romance. Set against the austere backdrop of post-Soviet Budapest, this Hungarian import is all about interstices – between childhood and adulthood, between victimhood and villainy, between haves and have-nots, between humankind and animals, and between tweens and the rest of the world. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Allegories can be extracted left and right but it’s also a red-blooded revenge thriller that puts humans in the hot seat. No wonder the title is a wordplay on Sam Fuller’s nature-versus-nurture masterpiece, “White Dog.” Continue Reading →
The Power of ‘Going Clear’
The expression “jaw-dropping” is used to describe movies all the time. But it wasn’t until “Going Clear” that I saw an entire audience – mostly comprised of jaundiced critics and industry insiders – with actual dropped jaws. It’s not that this HBO documentary delivers earth-shattering revelations about scientology, science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard’s billion-dollar prank-cum-self-help religion; in fact, it lacks some of the righteous heft of Lawrence Wright’s 2013 eponymous book, a 503-page, meticulously researched compendium of the church’s history, wrongdoings, and bizarre tenets. What it offers instead is the shock of footage amassed, especially of the Hitler-Goes-to-Hollywood conferences that are Scientology’s crowning glory. To see is to believe – or at least to believe that these believers exist. Continue Reading →
Interview: Bobby Cannavale, Dan Fogelman
Bobby Cannavale may not have instant household name recognition but, with his caterpillar eyebrows and booming New Jersey accent, he boosts everything in which he appears – from “Boardwalk Empire” to last year’s badly received “Annie” remake. Now, he is co-starring in “Danny Collins,” a film about an aging pop star (Al Pacino) who decides to change his life after receiving a long-delayed letter from John Lennon. I sat down with Cannavale and writer-director Dan Fogelman to discuss the lost art of the Hollywood tearjerker, what it was like to rehearse at Pacino’s house, and whether either of them would ever “sell out.” (Fogelman, who wrote “Last Vegas” in addition to “Crazy Stupid Love” and “Tangled,” joked he already had. We all sidestepped the topic of “Annie.”) Both guys did pretty spot-on Pacino imitations.