As a film critic, you sense the change of seasons before you actually feel the change in temperature.
A month ago, in the middle of the summer, I was writing one or two reviews a week, at least one of them a big blockbuster. Now I’m juggling five or six reviews a week, mostly of independent films, as the fall season gets underway. Believe me, I am not complaining.
“DePalma” has its Madison premiere at 7 p.m. Friday at the UW-Cinematheque, 4070 Vilas Hall, 821 University Ave. R, 1:50, three and a half stars out of four. FREE!
The Village Voice once ran dueling columns by its film critics, Andrew Sarris and J. Hoberman, on Brian DePalma. One was headlined “Derivative” and the other “Dazzling.”
Such has been the competing views of DePalma. Like his spiritual mentor Alfred Hitchcock, he’s been a deeply polarizing figure in American cinema who only now, late in life, may be finally getting his due. During his heyday, many critics couldn’t look past the blood or the naked women or the bloody naked women in “Dressed to Kill” or “Carrie” or “Body Double.”
But he had his champions, most notably Pauline Kael of The New Yorker, and has come to be renowned as one of the masters of cinematic storytelling. Even if those stories got a little overheated. The fine new documentary “De Palma,” by fellow filmmakers Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow, features just one interview, with De Palma himself, talking about every single film he ever made. No other interviewee is necessary.
Pick of the Week: “Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation“ (Amazon Prime and Hulu) — When word of a fifth “M:I” was announced, I thought “Really?” Sure, Brad Bird’s “Ghost Protocol” was the high point of the franchise for me, but did Tom Cruise really need to go to the well for a fifth time? As it turns out, “Rogue Nation” (directed by Christopher McQuarrie) is sparkling entertainment that blends the humor and panache of caper films of yore with cutting-edge stunts. Bring on No. 6.
Even the mariachi bands are depressing in a Todd Solondz movie. From 1996’s “Welcome to the Dollhouse” to the new “Wiener-Dog,” Solondz has been one of the most reliable miserablists in movies. He treats the losers and posers of the world with equal contempt. If there’s anybody in his movies he seems to have an affinity for, it’s the few amoral predators who prey on the rest of us. They’ve at least figured out the rules in such an unfeeling world.
I’ve gone back and forth on Solondz’s movies – I really liked his little-seen last film “Dark Horse,” but have found other films to be mean just for the sake of meanness – and a pretty repetitive meanness at that. It plays Saturday night at the UW-Cinematheque, 4070 Vilas Hall, for free on a double bill with the documentary “Weiner.”
We may not be ready to let go of summer just yet, but the release of the UW Cinematheque fall 2016 schedule makes digging that sweater vest out of the closet a little easier.
The free on-campus film series, which has spread from its home base at 4070 Vilas Hall to include the Marquee Theatre at Union South and the Chazen Museum of Art, features indie movie premieres, restored classics, documentaries and cult films. It’s safe to say that none of these films would play in Madison on a big screen if it wasn’t for the programmers at the Cinematheque. And it’s all free.
Pick of the Week: “Z for Zachariah” (Amazon Prime) — My full review is here. Despite a stellar cast that includes Margot Robbie (“Suicide Squad”), Chris Pine (“Star Trek Beyond”) and Chiwetel Ejiofor (“12 Years a Slave”), this Craig Zobel sci-fi drama never really caught fire and never played theatrically in Madison. Too bad, because it downplays the sci-fi and plays up the character drama, set in an idyllic valley apparently immune to the ravages of an apocalypse. A man and a woman meet there. And then another man shows up, setting up a love triangle with perhaps the future of humanity at stake.
Left to right: Steve Carell plays Mark Baum and Ryan Gosling plays Jared Vennett in The Big Short from Paramount Pictures and Regency Enterprises
Pick of the Week: “The Big Short“ (Netflix) — My full review is here. Adam McKay has satirized ’70s newsmen (“Anchorman”) and buddy cop movies (“The Other Guys”), but his wit has never been sharper or put to better use than against the arrogant idiocy of bankers who precipitated the 2008 financial meltdown. Working from Michael Lewis’ book and using a ridiculously good cast, McKay keeps us laughing even as we’re learning what happened, and why we should be so pissed off about it.
“Into the Forest” opens Friday at AMC Desert Star in Baraboo. (It’s also available on several streaming outlets, including Vudu and iTunes). R, 1:41, three and a half stars out of four.
“Into the Forest” is a post-apocalyptic disaster movie without a single visual effect. No explosions, no zombies, no mobs rioting in the streets. There’s just quiet, and dark.
Take the crisp elegance of a ‘60s heist film like “Rififi,” combine it with the shaggy, gritty charm of a ‘70s New York crime film like “Dog Day Afternoon,” and the result is the 1974 classic “The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three.”
“Pleasant Valley, where all is peace, and love, and harmony, and where men are beating each other’s brains out.”
It’s rare that an opening title card sets the tone of a movie quite so effectively as the laugh-out-loud beginning to Alexander Hall’s 1941 gem “Here Comes Mr. Jordan,” now out in a new Blu-ray edition from the Criterion Collection. It’s both a funny line and a signifier of one of the themes of the film, about how nothing quite lives up to our idealization of it. Not even Heaven.
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