Doc Corner: Michael Moore Goes to 'Trumpland'

Michael Moore in Trumpland is a misnomer of a title. For despite the comically scored pro-Trump vox pop interviews that open the film, and despite the smattering of apparent Trump supporters through the audience, Michael Moore’s has found himself the most liberal of audiences one could hope. “Around here, I ain’t heard nobody for Clinton” says one unidentified woman, but if that were the case then the crowd Moore has amassed are easily swayed because by the end of this brief 70-minute mix of stand-up, pre-filmed comedy sketches, call and response, and personal recollections in monologue, the entire crowd is cheering and whooping for Hillary.

Click to read more ...

Middleburg Finale: "Loving" & "La La Land"

Lynn Lee here stepping in for Nathaniel, on his way back to NYC, for the final day of the Middleburg Film Festival which was Sunday. As a D.C. area resident, I’ve been observing the rising profile of this local-ish film festival over the past few years with great interest.  Festival founder Sheila Johnson seems bent on making Middleburg a lower-altitude Telluride of the East, and she certainly has the Hollywood heavy-hitter connections to do it!  This year’s lineup was easily the most impressive so far in the festival’s short history; it’s as if the program was constructed specifically to highlight likely Oscar contenders.

The Lovings in the beloved Virginia.

In both that ambition and its picturesque Virginia setting, there was no more fitting film to cap the festival than Loving...

Click to read more ...

Review: "Rocky Horror" Loses Its Edge

by Eric Blume

Last night, Fox TV gave us a remake/update of the cult classic Rocky Horror Picture Show, a staple of midnight movie screenings for decades.  This update, with the tag "Let’s Do The Time Warp Again," aired at the family hour of 8pm, which pretty much sums up everything that’s wrong with it.   

The original 1975 film is the definition of “lightning in a bottle.” There had been nothing quite like it at the time. It was genuinely transgressive, and featured one of the all-time out-there performances by Tim Curry as Frank-n-Furter, everyone’s favorite "sweet transvestite".  While it’s easy to romanticize the original and ignore its weaknesses, the film does deliver as a warm-heated parody of sci-fi and horror movies as intended. What's more it's actually kinky, sexy, unsettling, and fun...

Click to read more ...

NYFF 2016 Wrap-Up. So Many Fine Films!

That's a wrap on the New York Film Festival which hosted the world premieres of 20th Century Women, The 13th, and Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk. But in festival season there's never any downtime. I'm off to Middleburg, Virginia tomorrow to try out a new festival. This one is just a weekend long fest with beautiful scenery -a baby Northeastern Telluride I suppose? Lion, Loving, La La Land, and Land of Mine (Denmark's Oscar submission) as well as some movies that don't begin with the letter "l" are screening. 

But meanwhile back in New York City, our hometown festival wrapped this Sunday. Here are all the reviews in case you missed any. Thanks again to Jason, Manuel, Bill, and Murtada for bringing this festival to you!

Manchester by the Sea, 20th Century Women, and Aquarius

28 Reviews
13th (Ava DuVernay's documentary on mass incarceration) - Glenn
20th Century Women (Mike Mills '70s beauty with Annette Bening) - Nathaniel
Abacus (documentary from Steve James of Hoop Dreams fame) - Jason
Aquarius (Brazil's starring Sonia Braga) - Manuel
The B-Side: Elsa Dornan's Portrait Photography (documentary) - Manuel
Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (Ang Lee's experimental 3D/4K film) - Nathaniel
Brillo Box (3 ¢ off) (documentary on the 60s art world) - Jason
Certain Women (Kelly Reichardt's 3 act) - Jason
Everything Else (Starring Oscar-nominated Adriana Barraza)  -Manuel
Graduation (from the director of 4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days) - Bill
Hermia & Helena (Directed by Matías Piñeiro) - Bill
I, Daniel Blake (this year's Palme D'or Champ) - Jason
Jackie (Pablo Larraín directs Natalie Portman as Jackie Kennedy) - Nathaniel
Julieta (Almodóvar's latest, Spain's Oscar submission) - Manuel
The Lost City of Z (an old fashioned epic from James Gray) - Jason
Manchester by the Sea (Kenneth Lonergan's Oscar hopeful) - Jason
Moonlight (the life of a gay black man) - Murtada/Manuel/Nathaniel
My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea (animated / experimental) - Manuel
Neruda (Pablo Larrain's movie about the poet on the run) - Nathaniel
The Ornithologist (a surreal queer Portuguese journey)  - Nathaniel
Paterson (Directed by Jim Jarmusch starring Adam Driver) - Jason
Personal Shopper (Olivier Assayas & Kristen Stewart reunion) -Jason
Staying Vertical (from the director of Stranger by the Lake) - Jason
Things To Come (starring Isabelle Huppert) - Jason
Toni Erdmann (Germany's comic Oscar submission) - Jason
Uncle Howard (a documentary about a filmmaker who died of AIDS) - Jason
The Unknown Girl (from Belgium's Dardenne brothers) - Manuel
Yourself and Yours (Hong SangSoo's ambiguous romantic drama) - Manuel

and
Q&As (Adam Driver, Naomie Harris, and Kenneth Lonergan) - Murtada
Q&As (Mike Mills on Annette Bening) - Murtada
Q&As (Pablo Larraín and Natalie Portman) - Murtada
Michelle Williams in Manchester (Her Oscar Moment?) - Murtada 

DVD Review: "Cafe Society"

by Chris Feil

While never reaching the heights of his other showbiz-adjacent comedies, Woody Allen's Cafe Society has charm and gloss to spare. Allen is marking the same thematic territory and era fascinations as he has frequently visited in the past, here with more hidden snideness than much of his recent works. Under its sparkling surface, Society is a subtly mean-spirited film.

Much of that tone comes from Jesse Eisenberg's central performance as Bobby Dorfman, a transplant to 1930s Hollywood under the not so watchful eye of his talent agent uncle (Steve Carell). Bobby is quick to chase girls, ultimately arriving to (or creepily wearing down) secretary Vonnie (Kristen Stewart), who also is secretly having an affair with his uncle. Vonnie becomes Bobby's girl on an eternal pedestal, always more an idea of a person than the woman before him...

Click to read more ...