Pictureland

Beasts of the Southern Wild arrives rather like a children’s book brought to life and projected large.  Unfortunately, with all due respect to the rich history of children’s literature, it doesn’t seem to have come from a very good book.  The source of “Beasts” is, in fact, a one act play entitled Juicy and Delicious, by Lucy Alibar .   The play was adapted for the screen by its author and director Benh Zeitlin.   It’s an ambitious first feature, and one that shows some promise for its young director.  But as ever, so much hinges on story.  Screenwriter Robert Riskin, several times a collaborator with Frank Capra, who was sick of the director taking credit for his work, apparently once waved a blank page in the other man's face and said, "Put the famous Capra touch on that!"  Well, yes.  Visual medium though it might be, intensely visual though "Beasts" is, writing is still an important part of the equation.  Hopefully dire...

It's so much easier to see the glory of war from a distance.  From many thousands of miles away or the remove of decades.  So much easier then to speak of greatest generations and by implication the glory of their efforts.  A fairly prominent New York critic has praised Zero Dark Thirty for so thoroughly showing the dark side of war.  As if there were any other side.  Of course, any war will have its varied experiences, its moments of bizarre juxtaposition, its examples of bravery.  But it's a grim, inhumane business. Zero Dark Thirty , written by Mark Boal and directed with brilliant assurance by Kathryn Bigelow, takes us right into the dark heart of the action.  The war in question, in the rather Orwellian Newspeak of the previous (and present) administration, is the "war on terror."  At times this action is quite slow, the following of leads and suspects over many years, the interminable wait to make decisive moves.  At other key ...

Here, there and everywhere:  Daniel Day-Lewis as the weary, rambling commander in chief in Steven Spielberg's Lincoln. Lincoln lives.  Mind you, he does nothing so outlandish in Steve Spielberg's latest film as stalking vampires.  But it is to the credit of this  Lincoln that   old Honest Abe is made so credibly real and yet seems no less mythical for the exercise.  Out of the history books. Up from the Tennessee marble of that famous sitting position in his stately memorial.  Down off all those pedestals that bear statues - five in Chicago alone -  of the 16th American president around the world. This 150 minute reanimation succeeds as it does owing to a recipe of roughly one part Spielbergian mastery and several parts Daniel-Day Lewis shape shifting.  If the Irish actor is mentioned in any chat amongst friends or co-workers, perhaps bruited between drinks at a gathering, you're likely to hear some seemingly facile testament to his bri...

Finally, a story.  So reads the screenwriter's epitaph, according to the old joke.  That dilemma, the unending quest for a good story, is one that Marty (Colin Farrell), an Irishman living in Hollywood, understands all too well.  His agent calls to remind him that his next screenplay is due.  Unfortunately, Marty has made little progress, beyond a bold if rather literal title:  Seven Psychopaths.  Thus begins the film within a film, or perhaps film about a film by another Irishman, Martin McDonagh, also in Hollywood and lapsing into a major sophomore slump after his surprising debut, I n Bruges (2008).   Seven Psychopaths might be only the second full-length feature for Mr. McDonagh, but for his part, he already seems to be a writer running desperately short of ideas. The subject matter in Seven Psychopaths , aside from the screenwriter's dilemma and, well, psychopaths, is hit men.  Such was the subject of McDonagh's vastly more original d...

It wasn't cinematic, complained a friend after a screening of The Sessions .  Much as I might like to disagree with that friend, if only to make her life more difficult,  it's a fair criticism of the film written and directed by Ben Lewin.  Mr. Lewin's film, based on the story, "On Seeing a Sex Surrogate," by Mark O'Brien often plays like a television movie and not a terribly distinguished one at that. Mark O'Brien was a journalist, poet and advocate for the disabled.  The contraction of the polio virus during childhood deprived him of the use of his limbs for the remainder of his life and often confined him to an iron lung.  Moving about Berkeley on a motorized gurney, he was able to complete a bachelor's degree in English literature in 1982.  Illness prevented him from completing a masters degree, but he was still able to pursue a career in journalism.  After writing an article on sex and disabled people, he was forced to confront fears about h...

My, what a big gun you have.  Joseph Gordon-Levitt wielding his blunderbuss in Looper .   What a drag it is to take out the trash.  This applies to you or me, hauling a drawstring bag full of god knows what down to the garbage can or dumpster.  It applies also to the existential grind of being a Looper.  It's 2044 and there's still something the matter with Kansas.  The good news is that in 30 years time travel will be possible.  The bad news is that this temporal byway is going to be plied mainly by the criminal element.  There will be the occasional need to travel back and forth to make sure matters in both the past and future are as they should be to those in charge.  But there's also the traffic of unfortunate souls given a one way ticket back to 2044 so they can be summarily killed and their body disposed of.  This is taking out the trash Looper-style, as Joe Simmons (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) explains, speaking with the terse...