I love a movie that lets us watch an artist at work (see also, Showing Up) especially when it’s a craftsman of a job I’ve never considered.
The Taste of Things sorts your Valentine’s Day Plans
Benoît Magimel is the Napoleon of French cuisine. Juliette Binoche is his cook, apprentice, and lover. Over twenty-plus years together, they’ve built an astonishing culinary and emotional partnership together at a stunning country estate. It’s the late 1800s in France, the Age of Escoffier is dawning, and the preparation, appreciation, and invention of food is serious business.
Madame Web needs an overhaul to survive long enough for a sequel
An NYPD EMT, Cassie Web (Dakota Johnson), has a lonesome existence, but she’s more than happy with the way things are while her partner Ben forces her out of her shell and into socializing. A life and death experience brings out a new power laying dormant within her brought on by her mother’s time in the Peruvian Amazon. As her mother lay dying during child birth, locals save Cassie’s life with the help of a rare spider that supposedly offers supernatural powers. Double crossed by her supposed protection Ezekiel Sims (Tahar Rahim), she clung to life just long enough for the birth of her daughter.
Argylle is a long, cliché-filled, hot mess
Part of the routine when attending preview screenings as a press member requires us to give a brief opinion after the movie to one of the PR representatives. The answer I gave after Argylle was “dumb but harmless.” A couple of days later, I still can’t think of anything better.
Sundance 2024 Notebook
Sundance 2024 is in full-swing in Park City, Salt Lake City, and — beginning on the 25th — online. I’m on the ground scurrying around the mountains to catch as much as I can. Keep an eye here (and @thesunbreak) for quick updates throughout the festival, with longer reviews to follow.
Sundance 2024 Notebook: Between the Temples
Seems like this manic movie about a cantor who finds himself unable to sing (Jason Schwartzman) a year after the death of his wife who inexplicably finds himself volunteering to prepare his zany old music teacher (Carol Kane) for her adult bat mitzvah aims to capture how it feels like to be driven mad by family, religion, and grief. If so, mazel!
Sundance 2024 Notebook: The Greatest Night in Pop
Hard to believe there hasn’t already been an authoritative documentary on the making of “We Are the World”, but it’s still very cool to sit down in a room with Lionel Ritchie as he recounts the navigating the conception, songwriting, logistics, and personalities of getting so many stars to agree to record an overnight charity hit.
Sundance 2024 Notebook: The Mother of All Lies
Rather than taking the audience out of the action with recreations, she instead employs the use of meticulously handcrafted dioramas that pull both viewers and her subjects into the story in a manner rarely seen in documentary.
Slamdance Virtual Film Festival hits the ‘net tomorrow
Slamdance is in its 30th year of showing unique and truly independent films and is offering what most film festivals have decided to throw out the window: both in-person and virtual screenings.
Sundance 2024 Notebook: Sebastian
An important Sundance tradition is seeing surprisingly explicit gay sex scenes in public library. Last year it was Passages; this time it’s Sebastian, about an up-and-coming writer discovering himself through the world’s oldest profession: auto-fiction.