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Telluride Review: Martin Scorsese's 'The 50 Year Argument'
55 minutes ago
One of the greater enjoyments of watching "The 50 Year Argument," a new documentary about the history of the New York Review of Books, is anticipating its HBO premiere on Sept. 29th and imagining just how torturous this saga of a venerable literary journal might be for anyone who’d turned the channel hoping to come across an episode of "Taxicab Confessions." The closest thing TV viewers will get to a true confession is Joan Didion admitting that she knew or cared little of national party politics when the magazine implored her to go write about a Democratic convention. Hard to believe they got this chick to sign a release after that, right? But seriously, the likeliest reason this particular documentary is getting a prime-time berth on HBO — or that it had an American theatrical premiere at the Telluride Film Festival over the weekend — is Martin Scorsese’s name in the credits as co-director, »
- Chris Willman
Lars von Trier's Next Project A Massive TV Series That's "Without Precedent"
2 hours ago
It could be argued that all of Lars von Trier's efforts are "without precedent," singular visions from the mind of a filmmaker that is truly like no other. Because really, who else would've put together a five-and-a-half hour epic about a woman addicted to sex that starts with her being found beaten in an alley? And even as von Trier closes the book on "Nymphomaniac," with director's cuts of both volumes screening for the first time together at the Venice Film Festival, he's got another big project on the way. The director — who vowed never to speak to the press following his Nazi comment controversy at the Cannes Film Festival — appeared via video link at Venice over the weekend during the press conference for "Nymphomaniac Vol II — Director's Cut" (check out three Nsfw new clips here) and revealed his next project. Sort of. He didn't say anything (though at »
- Kevin Jagernauth
Telluride Review: 'Escobar: Paradise Lost' Starring Benicio Del Toro And Josh Hutcherson
2 hours ago
You know that deeply anxious expression that Josh Hutcherson wears throughout "The Hunger Games" movies? Well, if you’re a fan of his trademark chagrined countenance, you get a whole lot more of it in "Escobar: Paradise Lost," where his character has a pretty good reason for near-constant concern. In this potboiler, Hutcherson’s a white boy (obviously) who’s pledged to marry into the family of famed Columbian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. What, he worry? At some point you may wonder why we’ve devoted an entire first paragraph to Josh Hutcherson when the title character is played by Benicio freaking Del Toro, the sort of dream casting that would seem to be a lede that shouldn’t be buried. Unfortunately, Escobar is a supporting character in his own movie — a situation that brings to mind "The Last King of Scotland," which enlisted Forest Whitaker to play Idi Amin »
- Chris Willman
Venice Review: ‘Far From Men’ Starring Viggo Mortensen And Reda Kateb
3 hours ago
Taking the rhythms of the Western to different countries, sometimes planets, time periods or political situations is hardly new, but done well it never gets old. And the French-language “Far From Men” aka “Loin des Hommes,” from writer/director David Oelhoffen, which transposes classic Western archetypes to the Algerian Civil War is a terrific reminder of that. It does not reinvent the wheel, nor is it a po-mo deconstruction of the Western myth or a pastiche. It is simply a great, traditional Western, in which the language and cultural details may be different, but the sparse elegance and moral conundrums are familiar, and as resonant as ever. With a premise based on Albert Camus’ short story “The Guest,” a fitting yet never clichéd soundtrack by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, and a pair of flawless lead performances from Viggo Mortensen and Reda Kateb, “Far From Men” is a quietly grand, »
- Jessica Kiang
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