Pick of the week: “Dear White People“: My full review is here. Justin Simien’s bold, funny and complex comedy looks at several African-American students trying to navigate the identity minefield of a “post-racial” campus, including a biracial activist, a gay nerd, and a dean’s son who can calibrate just how “street” he needs to be in a given situation. It’s a little flabby in spots, but I found this a bracing film that that accuses, and then flips the mirror back on the accusers.
“Meru” opens Friday at Sundance Cinemas. R, 1:27, three stars out of four.
“Meru” opens with a shot of three of the world’s best mountain climbers, sleeping in a giant bag hanging off the side of a cliff thousands of feet in the air. You don’t see that on the cover of Outside magazine.
While “Meru” has jaw-dropping visuals to rival that of fictional mountain climbing films like the upcoming “Everest,” it has a lasting impact because of how it digs into the hard work of climbing, and the psyches of those willing to to devote their lives to. Co-directed by legendary climber Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, “Meru” brings us closer than any other documentary to understanding what it’s like to be up hanging out the side of a treacherous mountain. But the more I understood what it was like, the less I understood what drove people like Chin to go back up there again and again.
“When Marnie Was There” gets its FREE Madison premiere (and only theatrical screenings) on Saturday, Sept. 6 at the UW-Cinematheque screening room, 4070 Vilas Hall. The 2 p.m. screening will be dubbed into English (with voice acting by Hailee Steinfeld, John C. Reilly and others) and an English-subtitled version at 7 p.m. This review is taken from the subtitled version. PG, 1:43, three and a half stars out of four.
Studio Ghibli films like “Spirited Away” and “Princess Mononoke” can take audiences seemingly anywhere. But they are cherished because they always stay tethered to the real world of children, creating emotional textures as rich and deep as their visual ones.
Headshot of Irish actor Peter O’Toole (L) and Egyptian-born actor Omar Sharif in a still from the film, ‘Lawrence of Arabia,’ directed by David Lean, 1962. (Photo by Columbia Pictures/Courtesy of Getty Images)
Pick of the week: “Lawrence of Arabia” (Netflix) — This must be a huge honor for “Lawrence of Arabia” to be the Instant Gratification Pick of the Week, right? I mean, I could have gone with “Byzantium,” but I thought I’d throw a little love the way of literally one of the greatest movies ever made. Anyway, David Lean’s epic starring Peter O’Toole as T.E. Lawrence, the British adventure entranced and seduced by the desert sands, is a wonderful movie, and is presented here in its diamond-sharp HD restored edition.
Madison Movie 