Showing posts with label Opinion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Opinion. Show all posts

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Footnote

When I describe "Footnote," you may conclude that it offers little for you. In fact, it's one of the smartest and most merciless comedies to come along in a while. It centers on an area of fairly narrow interest, but in its study of human nature, it is deep and takes no prisoners. Two main characters: The father has devoted his life to scratching out minute inconsistencies in various versions of the Talmud. His son is a great popularizer of Judaic lore, whose books are best-sellers and whose face is often on television.
Continue Reading on RogerEbert.com 

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Into the Abyss: A Tale of Death, A Tale of Life

"Into the Abyss" may be the saddest film Werner Herzog has ever made. It regards a group of miserable lives, and in finding a few faint glimmers of hope only underlines the sadness.

The documentary centers on two young men in prison. Michael Perry is on Death Row in Huntsville, Texas, America's most productive assembly line for executions, and on the day Herzog spoke with him had eight days to live. Jason Burkett, his accomplice in the stupid murders of three people, is serving a 40-year sentence. They killed because they wanted to drive a friend's red Camaro.

Saving Face

Every year in Pakistan, at least 100 men feel entitled to throw acid into the faces of their wives, some of them still in early adolescence. Many of these attacks go unreported. In some cases, the women feel they must return to their husband's home after the hospital, because they have no other way to pay for the care of their children.
Continue Reading on RogerEbert.com 

Louis Vuitton Fall 2012 Ready-to-Wear

How do you follow up a merry-go-round? If you're Marc Jacobs at Louis Vuitton, you get your people to build an old-fashioned train car. From scratch. The steam engine it was attached to pulled into the Cour Carrée a few minutes after ten this morning. One by one, Jacobs' models de-boarded wearing outfits straight out of the golden age of railroading, followed by porters carrying as many as three bags per girl. The news on the bag front this season is their oversize proportions and exotic fabrications. "It's just a trip," Jacobs said afterward, but you could tell even he was chuffed by the grand spectacle of it all.
 Continue reading on Style.com

Friday, March 9, 2012

Top 10 Worst Mike Milbury Trades, Contracts, and Transactions

Many might remember Mike Milbury as the hockey player who jumped into the MSG stands and beat a fan with his own shoe. Others might remember Milbury for his many controversies on and off the ice, but New York Islanders fans are imprinted with other not-so-fond memories of their former GM and coach.
Even though Milbury, Charles Wang, and Sanjay Kumar helped the Islanders get back to the playoffs in the early 2000s, the various transactions that Milbury made as the GM of the Isles had some long-term effects on the organization.
Here’s a look at some of Mad Mike Milbury’s (worst) transactions from the late-90s to the mid-2000s:

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Hugo

"Hugo" is unlike any other film Martin Scorsese has ever made, and yet possibly the closest to his heart: a big-budget, family epic in 3-D, and in some ways, a mirror of his own life. We feel a great artist has been given command of the tools and resources he needs to make a movie about — movies. That he also makes it a fable that will be fascinating for (some, not all) children is a measure of what feeling went into it.
Continue Reading on RogerEbert.com

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Hugo

Kinyawanda

I thought I knew something about Rwanda, but I didn't really know very much. I was moved by "Hotel Rwanda" (2004), but not really shaken this deeply. Not like this. After seeing "Kinyarwanda," I have a different kind of feeling about the genocide that took place in Rwanda in 1994. The film approaches it not as a story line but as a series of intense personal moments.
Continue Reading on RogerEbert.com


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Kanye West Fall 2012 Ready-to-Wear

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Link:
http://www.style.com/fashionshows/review/F2012RTW-KWEST

Kanye West Spring 2012 Ready-to-Wear

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Link:
http://www.style.com/fashionshows/review/S2012RTW-KWEST

Monday, March 5, 2012

The Descendants

"The Descendants" has a happy ending. Therefore, technically, it's a comedy. It takes place in the paradise of Hawaii. It stars George Clooney. That may lead you to expect a pleasant good time, but this film is so much more than that. Clooney gives one of his best performances in this film directed and co-written by Alexander Payne, who in "Sideways" (2004) and "About Schmidt" (2002), showed a special affinity for men learning to accept their better feelings.
Continue Reading on RogerEbert.com


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The Descendants

Shame

There's a close-up in "Shame" of Michael Fassbender's face showing pain, grief and anger. His character, Brandon, is having an orgasm. For the movie's writer-director, Steve McQueen, that could be the film's master shot. There is no concern about the movement of Brandon's lower body. No concern about his partner. The close-up limits our view to his suffering. He is enduring a sexual function that has long since stopped giving him any pleasure and is self-abuse in the most profound way.
Continue Reading on RogerEbert.com


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Friday, March 2, 2012

Julia Holter - Ekstasis

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Link:
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/16352-ekstasis/

Silent Souls

Road movies take many forms, and "Silent Souls" is the road movie as metaphysical memory and meditation. This profound and immensely touching film in only 75 perfect minutes achieves the profundity of an epic. I read the description (two friends from the ancient Merjan tribe in Russia take a funeral trip involving the wife of one) and wasn't much interested; it sounded like ethnography without impact. Yet not often have I been more deeply touched.
Continue Reading on RogerEbert.com


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Limi Feu Fall 2012 Ready-to-Wear

Cute.

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Link:
http://www.style.com/fashionshows/review/F2012RTW-LIMIFEU

Pallbearer: Sorrow and Extinction


Link:
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/16345-sorrow-and-extinction/

Sorrow and Extinction - Pallbearer

Thursday, March 1, 2012

The Artist

Is it possible to forget that "The Artist" is a silent film in black and white, and simply focus on it as a movie? No? That's what people seem to zero in on. They cannot imagine themselves seeing such a thing. At a sneak preview screening here, a few audience members actually walked out, saying they didn't like silent films. I was reminded of the time a reader called me to ask about an Ingmar Bergman film. "I think it's the best film of the year," I said. "Oh," she said, "that doesn't sound like anything we'd like to see."
Continue Reading on RogerEbert.com


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Antonio Berardi Fall 2012 Ready-to-Wear

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Link:
http://www.style.com/fashionshows/review/F2012RTW-ABERARDI