1348 Best Film & TV Releases Translated Into Russian (Page 52)

From the moment that it debuted in 1961, following months of negative headlines surrounding its schedule and cost overruns that all but sealed its fate long before it ever hit theaters, a debate has raged over One-Eyed Jacks, the jumbo-sized Western that proved to be the Heaven’s Gate of its day. It also marked the beginning and the ending of the directorial career of renowned actor Marlon Brando. Was it, as some people even back then noted, a one-of-a-kind masterpiece that dared to inject overt artistry and psychology into what was normally one of the most straightforward of screen genres? Or, as others suggested, was it a pretentious and bloated misfire that did nothing but underscore the dangers of letting an actor with overweening creative ambitions take charge of a project without any sort of controls? Continue Reading →

After eight years of itchy, bland Catholic School uniforms, I was ready for a change. When I entered high school, I switched to one of the only public schools in the state of Louisiana that didn’t require a uniform. Now that I could dress how I wanted, I needed to make a splash. I wanted to show everyone exactly who I was and what I brought to the table. My 13 year old brain decided the best way to do that was wearing this t-shirt featuring the logo of Mr. Sparkle, the Japanese laundry detergent that uses Homer’s head as inspiration in the Season 8 episode of The Simpsons, “In Marge We Trust." Continue Reading →

As we continue the bleak discourse about how well pop culture of the past has aged (or hasn’t, rather), it’s probably safe to say that the vast majority of 80s comedies aren’t going to hold up to present day scrutiny. Hobbled by casual racism, sexism and homophobia (not to mention rape gags, if you’re Revenge of the Nerds), to watch many of them now is to cringe in discomfort. Teen comedies didn’t often escape it either, as evidenced by the vastly different Porky’s and Sixteen Candles, both of which aged like milk. It’s interesting that the comedies that addressed “dark” subjects, like Fast Times at Ridgemont High (abortion) and Heathers (suicide) are the ones that managed to survive relatively unscathed. Continue Reading →

If repression is the ultimate aphrodisiac, there are few films that make such a case for it than Wong Kar-wai’s sumptuous 2000 masterpiece In the Mood for Love, one of the most passionate, delicately rendered on-screen odes to yearning cinema has ever produced.  Continue Reading →

Though My Blueberry Nights has been largely left untouched in the renaissance of Wong Kar-wai’s work like the pies at its center of the film, it’s finally time to cut a slice and see what can be savored. From the outside, it looks like a Kar-wai blueberry pie. It has a sugar crisped lid that’s inviting and promises hidden depths. Yet, as our fork reaches the bottom, we find it soggy.  Continue Reading →

The Law & Order: SVU and Law & Order: Organized Crime crossover event on April 1st  will mark not only the premiere of a new Law & Order spinoff, but also the return of one Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni). For the first 12 seasons of SVU Stabler and Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) were the SVU team, the perfect partners. Continue Reading →

Dan Mahoney (Philip Seymour Hoffman) doesn’t want to win anything – he just wants to gamble. He drives a shabby car, wears a cheap suit, and lives with a woman he clearly doesn’t love. Most of his life is just a front – Mahoney maintains his appearance as a respectable, up-and-coming bank manager to facilitate his destructive hobby, even as a bookie barges into his office to collect the ten grand Dan owes. From the moment we meet him until Owning Mahoney’s final frame, he has no endgame. He just wants to bet. Continue Reading →

One of the most fascinating things about Godzilla -- whether in his original Japanese provenance in his long-running series of films, or in the comparatively-recent "MonsterVerse" Westernization of the big lizard, courtesy of Warner Bros. and Legendary -- is that he's so malleable. On the one hand (as with the original 1954 Ishiro Honda film and Gareth Edwards' flawed but philosophically-intriguing 2014 reboot), he can be a poignant vehicle to explore the apocalyptic anxieties of nations ravaged by atomic bombs and climate change. Continue Reading →

A thirty-plus-year veteran of film and TV scoring, Kiner's a chameleon who can work with the themes and motifs set by other composers and spin them into broader, more dynamic cues demanded by the rigors of television storytelling. That's borne out in his work for Star Wars, especially, where at this point he's written more music for the universe than John Williams himself -- while he finds moments to work in familiar motifs and themes, Kiner also carves out room for experimentation, which you can hear in the more synth-heavy scoring for Clone Wars: The Final Season. Continue Reading →

It’s been 25 years since we last saw coach Gordon Bombay (Emilio Estevez) and his ragtag hockey team came out victorious in D3: The Mighty Ducks. But when they return in the Disney+ spinoff series The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers, things are a little different. For instance, Bombay isn't the same man he was; he now hates hockey and kids. Continue Reading →

While there are many ways to adapt material to another medium, there do seem to be two prominent schools of thought. Some want adaptations of existing works to take the source material as a jumping-off point. The original text should inspire the creators of the new media, but should make their own perspective felt. On the other hand, there are those that crave pure accuracy. They want the new piece to resemble the original as closely as possible, in tone, point of view, and style. Continue Reading →

Welcome to the Criterion Corner, where we break down some of the month’s new releases from the Criterion Collection. #1070: Secrets & Lies (1996), dir. Mike Leigh Secrets & Lies - Criterion One would be hard-pressed to find a more keenly-observed chronicler of everyday life than England's own Mike Leigh. While some of his films dabble in the historic and histrionic (Topsy-Turvy, Mr. Turner, Peterloo come to mind), it's in his modern-day profiles of the workaday Briton -- Life Is Sweet, Naked, Career Girls -- where his quiet, observational eye holds the most purchase. 1996's Secrets & Lies might well be the purest distillation of Leigh's kitchen-sink dramas; he touches on social issues of class and race, but only slightly, with none of the preachiness Ken Loach is occasionally guilty of. And in so doing, speaks volumes about those very issues while keeping its focus on its individual characters and how they navigate those spaces. Secrets & Lies is about two worlds colliding: one belongs to Hortense Cumberbatch (Marianne Jean-Baptiste, masterful in her quiet calm), a successful middle-class optometrist who takes an interest in tracking down her biological mother after her adoptive one dies. The culprit, we learn, is Cynthia (a Cannes-winning performance from Brenda Blethyn), a brittle, middle-aged factory worker falling apart at the seams at her advancing years and her fractious relationships with her daughter and brother (a steady Timothy Spall). Hortense is Black; Cynthia is white -- dynamics that cause first confusion, then strife in these family dynamics, as Cynthia eventually brings Hortense into the explosive relationships around her. Continue Reading →

Like most pieces of queer cinema, Happy Together was widely misunderstood on its initial release. Looking back on its reviews in 1997 by American critics, there’s a puzzling emphasis on the narrative. Specifically, many critics at the time took umbrage for what they perceived as a “laggy” storyline. So prominent were these criticisms that they ended up giving the film a Metacritic score just one point about Star Wars: Episode III- Revenge of the Sith. Continue Reading →

"Everything expires. Is there anything in this world that doesn't?" Continue Reading →

Chris McKim's documentary about the fiery artist turned AIDS activist is a stirring tribute to voices that were silenced too soon. New York City in the 1980s was shaken to social rubble as the “epicenter” of the AIDS epidemic. Multimedia artist David Wojnarowicz was one such voice among the quaking moans of societal collapse. Director Chris McKim’s new documentary, Wojnarowicz: Fuck You Faggot Fucker, offers an in-depth look at the raging flame that made the artist such a potent critic of his times. Using a dazzling display of archival materials, significantly from Wojnarowicz's huge collection of “tape journals,” McKim and fellow World of Wonder producers Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey piece together the artist’s journey largely in his own words. We hear his storries about a traumatic childhood, being a sex worker, the discovery of himself as an artist, his AIDS diagnosis, and problems with fame all in his characteristically keen and morose drone.  Continue Reading →

During our pandemic lockdowns, who amongst us hasn’t recruited quarantined friends and family into a baking project beyond our experience? Now imagine the pressure of concocting an elaborate bake with a pal or family member for all the world to see. With Netflix’s Nailed It! Double Trouble, bakers pair up in teams of two to recreate extravagant bakes and win $10,000. While some elements have changed in this new season, host Nicole Byer still panics at the push of a button, chef Jacques Torres still imparts wisdom to the contestants, and the bakers reach new heights of spectacular cake fails. In the words of guest judge Ron Funches, “I love a good hot mess.” Nailed It! Double Trouble is the good hot mess we need, seeing twice the fun and chaos from amateur bakers. Continue Reading →

The remaining festival offerings in horror are satisfyingly gory, but some fall short in plot & characterization. (This dispatch is part of our coverage of the 2021 SXSW Film Festival.) After a strong beginning, South by Southwest’s “Midnighters” category wraps up with more ecohorror, an animated fantasy epic, and yet more small town folks acting weird. Gorehounds will be pleased to know that over the top violence seems to be making a comeback in horror, if some of the films featured here are any indication. Regrettably, in some cases it’s at the cost of a cohesive, fleshed out plot. Continue Reading →

Udo Kier gets a lovely late-career showcase, and Leah Purcell directs a brustling but unfocused feminist Western. (This dispatch is part of our coverage of the 2021 SXSW Film Festival.) Much like time in a Tracy Lawrence song, the 2021 South by Southwest film festival marches on. However, while SXSW will continue on until March 20, the Narrative Spotlight section has reached its final day with two entries. The vast differences between this pair of features reinforces the level of variety found in this festival. The first of these closing Narrative Spotlight projects is a wistful yet joyous endeavor starring the one and only Udo Kier.   Continue Reading →

Bradley Bell and Pablo Jones-Soler assemble a freewheeling look at the artistic process from soup to nuts. (This review is part of our coverage of the 2021 SXSW Film Festival.) A good number of the films on display at this year’s SXSW festival are works that are inextricably tied to the COVID-19 pandemic, either by using at as a part of the plot or because of the limitations to the production process instilled by quarantine procedures. Alone Together, which had its world premiere at the festival, takes those approaches one step further by serving as a documentary watching an artist—in this case, avant-pop queen Charli XCX—as she goes about her work under the new restrictions brought on by the current reality.  Continue Reading →

In Wong Kar-wai’s Fallen Angels, we follow two parallel narratives. One tells the story of a contract killer (Leon Lai) trying to get out of the game and his agent (Michelle Reis) who is infatuated with him. The other follows a chaotic and mute man, He Zhwiu (Takeshi Kaneshiro), who falls in love with a woman called Charlie (Charlie Yeung) whom he keeps running into. There’s a lot to like here, from the moodiness of Hong Kong to the music, to Wong Kar-wai’s signature stunning lighting. One specific thing which is really fascinating here is how few moments of dialogue are present here, and how that makes this film so effective.  Continue Reading →