Category: NON-HOLLYWOOD
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Habbet Loulou [2013] ★★
What were they thinking? I kept asking myself that question as I plodded through the watchable but pointless first hour of this new Lebanese comedy/drama. Why bother naming your movie “Habbet Loulou” if the movie itself isn’t worthy of its title? Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that writer director Layal M.Rajha simply wanted to transplant…
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The Hunt [2013] ★★★½
A powerful and thought provoking drama is rare during summer season. That’s what makes “The Hunt” so special, and I hope moviegoers will find their way to see it. It’s one of the year’s best films. Danish writer-director Thomas Vinterberg aims to shock his audience by telling the story of a divorced schoolteacher (Mads Mikkelsen, Le…
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Trance [2013] ★★★
Danny Boyle follows up “Slumdog Millionaire” and “127 Hours” with this juicy, mind bending thriller. He and his screenwriters have crafted the kind of twisty tale we don’t see very often nowadays. James McAvoy plays Simon, a London auctioneer who teams up with art thief Franck (Vincent Cassel, as good as always) to steal Goya’s masterpiece, “Witches in…
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3096 Days [2013] ★★½
“3096 Days” is the true story of Natascha Kampusch, the 10 year old Austrian girl who was snatched off the street by a stranger in 1998. Her kidnapper, Wolfgang Priklopil shut her in an underground room beneath his garage, telling her that the doors and windows were booby trapped and that her family had forgotten about her. The…
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Searching For Sugar Man [2012] ★★★½
This year’s Oscar winner for Best Documentary is the incredible story of a Mexican- American songwriter called Rodriguez, who failed miserably in America in the early 70’s but became a pop culture icon in South Africa where he found a huge audience. The sad thing is that Rodriguez had no idea he was a legend…
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Wadjda [2012] ★★★½
Can I tell you how thrilled I am that I got to see this movie? Part of the response comes from the excitement of discovery: a writer-director from Saudi Arabia,Haifaa Al Mansour, making her feature debut, and creating a movie that is both entertaining and thought provoking. The hype-meisters of moviedom have made it difficult to use words…
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Amour [2012] ★★★½
What can you say about a film that is so vividly real, and so intense, that it holds you spellbound for two hours, without letup? “Amour” would be superior filmmaking under any circumstances. With rare subtlety and transforming art, the remarkable writer-director Michael Haneke takes us into the emotional heart of an old french couple. Both are…
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Hyde Park On Hudson [2012] ★★½
Sometimes, a solid performance makes a movie worth watching. Case in point: Bill Murray, who portrays President Franklin D. Roosevelt in this charming little movie that takes place in the summer of 1939. The story focuses on Roosevelt’s distant cousin Daisy Suckley (Laura Linney) and her relationship with the President. Director Roger Michell imagines what may have happened…
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Anna Karenina [2012] ★★★
Granted that screen and tv adaptations of Leo Tolstoy’s most popular novel are nothing new, the last being a 2000 British version. And granted that the peak is still the 1935 movie starring Greta Garbo and Fredric March. But even the most faithful fans must allow that director Joe Wright, has given Tolstoy’s novel a beguilingly…
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Skyfall [2012] ★★★½
There’s only one reason why “Skyfall” is the hippest, highest-octane Bond film in ages, and his name is Daniel Craig. Way before “Casino Royale” was released, the internet buzz killers were already ragging on him for being blond and blue-eyed and too short for Bond duty. Not only did Craig turn out to be the best…
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The Hidden Face [2012] ★★★
If you feel like watching something completely different from the Hollywood Formula, I encourage you to check the Spanish movie “The Hidden Face”. If you’re curious about the title, or the movie itself, I’d tell you to skip the trailer and let the film unfold its constantly surprising story as the filmmaker intended. So surprising in…
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Salmon Fishing In The Yemen [2012] ★★
It’s difficult to know what to make of “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen“. When I asked some people about it, reaction was all over the map. One person said it was a horrible movie, while another said that its “a mixture of boredom and wisdom”; many others echoed their sentiments. I fall somewhere in between…
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La Délicatesse [2012] ★★½
Not every movie has to be an event, or a blockbuster. Sometimes, all I ask of a film is that it offers an entertaining diversion for a certain period of time. That’s exactly what I got from “La Delicatesse”. During this current movie season, when it’s all about superheroes and visual experience, small movies tend…
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Shame [2011] ★★★
“Shame” is a disturbing but vivid portrait of a sex addict that will push you out of your comfort zone into uncharted territory. Director Steve McQueen, who previously worked with Michael Fassbender in the equally good “Hunger” creates a palpable sense of unease from start to finish. But you won’t be able to take your…
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Hysteria [2012]
Part of me doesn’t even want to tell you that “Hysteria” is a movie about the invention of the electric vibrator. My guess is, you’ll laugh and stop reading. Not so fast. There’s a promising premise on the boil here, and screenwriting team Stephen Dyer and Jonah Lisa Dyer make sure you get a history lesson out of…
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Bel Ami [2012]
Robert Pattinson’s acting is the equivalent of Justin Bieber’s singing abilities. They both stink. Is there even a life after “Twilight” for the dude? Kristen Stewart made a decent case in “The Runaways”. Now Pattinson, her vamp lover, tries his luck in this period piece, based on Guy De Maupassant’s novel about a young social climber…
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Comme Un Chef [2012] ★★½
I’ve been in the grip of a bad cold for almost 4 days; I somehow managed to work a little bit on my blog, but I hadn’t seen a movie since Tuesday (which in my book is about a century). By Friday afternoon I was frustrated, so I did what I’ve always done when I’m feeling…
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This Must Be The Place [2011]
Evaluating any movie is a matter of personal taste. Filmmakers who deal in the bizarre naturally provoke bizarre reactions. That’s my way of saying that I wasn’t impressed with “This Must Be The Place”, the latest movie from director Paolo Sorentino. This is not to say that the movie doesn’t have so many good attributes, because…
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The Deep Blue Sea [2012]
Rachel Weisz teams up with director Terence Davies in “The Deep Blue Sea”, a sad and heartbreaking tale of love gone beautifully right and amazingly wrong. Davies masterfully adapted the film, based on the play by Terence Rattigan, with an incredible eye for details. It’s a simple story for sure, set in 1950, but the film…
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A Separation [2011] ★★★½
This year’s Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language is raw and riveting, and that’s what makes it so effective. “A Separation”, written and directed by Asghar Farhadi is a pileup of horrors, and Farhadi does little to lighten the burden. You won’t find yourself smiling or feeling good after the credits start rolling. Instead, the movie…
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