Review: Tolkien

by Chris Feil

Inert biopics line the multiplex like gravestones, but seldom are they as dead on arrival as Tolkien. Depicting the author and philologist’s young adulthood and experience in World War I before creating The Hobbit, Dome Karukoski’s film isn’t just another dull cookie cutter telling of a famous figure. It’s perhaps a new gold standard of “Wikipedia entry as high school book report as prestige picture” malaise, the low bar to compare passable boring films. “At least it’s not Tolkien.”

Nicholas Hoult stars as the eponymoius J.R.R. Tolkien, struggling to overcome his social and fiscal limitations while at Oxford. He is part of a foursome of tightly knit male friends and artists, each with class stature above his own. Meanwhile he sacrifices his love for fellow orphan Edith Bratt (Lily Collins) in order to secure his future. The outbreak of the war casts all of this asunder, serving Tolkien blows to the body and spirit that ultimately serve his coming creative landmarks.

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Tribeca 2019: "The Projectionist" and "Circus of Books"

Here is Jason Adams reporting again from the Tribeca Film Festival.

Sex is disappearing. Look at the Ken-like plains of our Marvel Superhero pant-fronts -- or even look how sexless our superstars made the concept of Camp look at the Met Gala this week, as if horn-dog horniness doesn't go hand in hand with that over-heated sensibility. Paul Verhoeven's Showgirls: the true end of an era. On this theme two documentaries that played Tribeca last week looked back at two nearly extinct modes of orgiastic delivery -- the porn theater and the porn shop...

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Tribeca: "In Fabric"

Jason Adams with another review from the Tribeca Film Festival.

There was a Twitter query going around last week asking in the wake of the new Avengers film what pop culture events we felt personally blessed to have lived through in our lives. Apparently some people feel this way about the Marvel movies, which, well, great for them. It's nice to be happy. Personally I like more lesbian sadomasochism and insect fetishism in my entertainment, so my answer to said query falls more in line with how I think we're live-time experiencing the birth of a genre genius with the writer-director Peter Strickland, who's gone three for three with Berberian Sound Studio, The Duke of Burgundy, and now In Fabric, his latest slow-motion psych-out beamed in from an alternate dimension.

In Fabric first introduces us to Sheila (a marvelously world-weary Marianne Jean-Baptiste), who swims through her bank job and a string of telephone-based blank dates with all the ease of any Strickland character, which is to say with little to no ease at all...

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Review: Dead to Me (Season 1)

By Spencer Coile 

In recent years, Netflix has held the honor and burden of bringing to life countless TV series – giving a voice to talent previously under or unseen. While it has become impossible to keep up with everything the platform currently has to offer, it also allows its creators, writers, and directors to tell their stories on their terms. Gone are the days where television was situated comfortably in the binary of comedy and drama. Now we have space carved out for shows that subvert our expectations, make us uncomfortable, and if we’re lucky, invite us into the artist’s vision. 

Liz Feldman takes complete advantage of this genre fluidity. Her Netflix creation, Dead to Me (streaming now), is a darkly comic meditation on grief and the ways it manifests within our interpersonal relationships. Featuring especially remarkable turns from two typically underutilized actresses, Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini, Dead to Me is a prickly, but surprisingly personal examination into how we process trauma... 

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Tribeca 2019: "The Place of No Words"

Here's Jason Adams reporting from Tribeca once more...

Do you remember the moment you first realized what death is? The goldfish speech from Kill Bill: Volume II comes to mind -- "A fish flapping on the carpet, and a fish not flapping on the carpet." I remember a dead squirrel in the middle of the road, personally. But I think for most of us, the lucky ones who didn't experience an early loss, it's too gradual a process to recollect. The idea of a before and an after, heck even the concept of time itself, was less defined. Of course then we get older. Now I'm watching my friends have to explain these ideas to their kids, putting walls and definitions around boundless ideas.

Mark Webber's The Place of Lost Words attempts to straddle both of those places...

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