The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
SimilarBatman Forever (1995), Constantine (2005), Sin City (2005), Spider-Man 2 (2004), Spider-Man 3 (2007), The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), The Dark Knight (2008),
Studio20th Century Fox, Walt Disney Productions,
One of the things I enjoy most about the moviegoing experience is coming out of a film feeling as if I've actually learned something that I didn't know before, or had not even occurred to me in the first place. That's exactly the feeling that I got while watching Sam Pollard’s The League, a documentary about the history of Negro baseball leagues in America. Going in, I suppose I knew the basics about the subject and could name such key figures as Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige, but Pollard, who previously directed MLK/FBI, and executive producer Questlove delve much deeper, and the results are indeed fascinating. Continue Reading →
Les Olympiades
SimilarAmélie (2001), East of Eden (1955), The Dark Knight (2008), The Good German (2006), The Party (1980), The Party 2 (1982),
Jacques Audiard’s Paris, 13th District opens on a Parisian building. More specifically, on a young woman named Émilie (Lucie Zhang in her feature debut), a struggling telemarketer, singing naked in her apartment. Next to her is Camille (Makita Samba), a literary professor, her new roommate, new lover, future ex-roommate, and future ex-lover. Broken credits chop up the action, staggered throughout the first lengthy scene. There’s an ephemeral nature to all of it, the sex and romance just as fleeting as the credits only fully shown for a moment, though Audiard has no problem spending longer with the revolving bodies of this story. Continue Reading →