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The Telluride Film Festival

Written by Godfrey Cheshire on September 19, 2000. Posted in Arts & Film, Posts

Telluride Film Festival Like cinema itself, the Telluride Film Festival seesaws on a delicate question: How does any movie stand a chance when competing with the most spectacular of nature’s beauties? I had never been to the Colorado Rockies before, much less this annual cinematic aerie, so I was primed to be wowed. And wowed
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Kurosawa’s Last Film; Life in New York’s Train Tunnels

Written by Godfrey Cheshire on September 5, 2000. Posted in Arts & Film, Posts

Madadayo Directed by Akira Kurosawa Of the dwindling numbers of filmgoers who pay attention to foreign films, surely the majority keeps an eye out for the titles blazoned "Masterpiece!" and "Four stars!" But I tend to be even more curious about the smaller, problematic, less heralded works, because their very deficiencies often reveal the fundament
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30th Anniversary of Gimme Shelter

Written by Godfrey Cheshire on August 15, 2000. Posted in Arts & Film, Posts

Gimme Shelter Directed by Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin A couple of months ago I saw it for the first time, probably, since 1972. Given my history with the film, I suppose I expected it to seem somehow different or lesser, a relic of faded enthusiasms. But it didn’t. It seemed exactly as
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Hollow Man Could Have Been Worse; Croupier’s Aces

Written by Godfrey Cheshire on August 8, 2000. Posted in Arts & Film, Posts

Hollow Man Directed by Paul Verhoeven Ideally, this movie is not seen at home or in the company of other people. You run into it when you’re for some reason stuck in Willy Lomansville for a night or two. You’re too tired to read or go out (oh yeah, you remember: there’s nowhere to go),
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The Wind Will Carry Us, Kiarostami’s Wonderfulâeuro;”and Puzzlingâeuro;”Latest

Written by Godfrey Cheshire on August 1, 2000. Posted in Arts & Film, Posts

The Wind Will Carry Us Directed by Abbas Kiarostami Poetry and Sufism. Both are useful coordinates for anyone trying to get a fix on the intent behind The Wind Will Carry Us, a gorgeous, semiopaque film that left me with a uniquely split reaction when I saw its premiere at last year’s Venice Film Festival.
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Pfeiffer and Ford in What Lies Beneath

Written by Godfrey Cheshire on July 25, 2000. Posted in Arts & Film, Posts

What Lies Beneath Directed by Robert Zemeckis What Lies Beneath tries damn hard to be this summer’s "I see dead people" movie, but alas, most of the deathly stares it conjures up will be in the audience. Ponderous, overlong and filled to the brim with preposterous contrivances, it’s the last thing fans of the haunted-house
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Chuck and Buck is the Smartest Comedy of the Year

Written by Godfrey Cheshire on July 18, 2000. Posted in Arts & Film, Posts

Chuck & Buck Directed by Miguel Arteta How much of comedy is tied to embarrassment? A minority perhaps, but a robust, memorable one. As for the ways comic embarrassment involves movie protagonists, there are perhaps only two basic flavors. In the first, the protagonist is a screwy-but-likable comic hero and it’s the situation that’s embarrassing.
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The Patriot: Mel Smokes Redcoats!

Written by Godfrey Cheshire on July 5, 2000. Posted in Arts & Film, Posts

The Patriot Directed by Roland Emmerich Although it’s squarely tailored to the heroic shoulders of star Mel Gibson, the movie was not produced or directed by him, as the film containing his most famous epic role, Braveheart, was. Rather, The Patriot unites two teams associated with some big summer movies of years past: screenwriter Richard
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In Me, Myself & Irene, The Farrelly Brothers Lose Their Gamble

Written by Godfrey Cheshire on June 28, 2000. Posted in Arts & Film, Posts

Watching the coming attractions at a beach theater two summers ago, I saw back-to-back trailers for upcoming comedies, and was struck by their differences. The mild, sorta-amusing one for Tamara Jenkins’ The Slums of Beverly Hills was completely clobbered by the three-minute laff riot advertising the Farrelly Brothers’ There’s Something About Mary, which was flat-out
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Fiennes in the Big, Well-Packaged, Unapologetically Middlebrow Sunshine

Written by Godfrey Cheshire on June 13, 2000. Posted in Arts & Film, Posts

A big, well-packaged, unapologetically middlebrow and trying-hard-to-be-mainstream history tour, Sunshine turns on threes: it lasts three hours; focuses on three generations of Sonnenscheins as they endure three poisonous authoritarian regimes (imperial, Nazi and Stalinist); and stars Ralph Fiennes in three successive lead roles. Yes, I know Ralph isn’t the least bit Magyar, even in triplicate.
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