Compliance
Directed by Craig Zobel The chilling docu-style film of a young fast-food worker being manipulated and humiliated, Story of O-style, involves the staff of a small-town McDonald’s or the like, Compliance made me profoundly uncomfortable for hours after I left the screening venue. A policeman calls to report that the cute, blonde teen girl at [...]
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Rock of Ages
“Rock of Ages,” the long-run Broadway jukebox musical set to beloved 1980′s power bubble gum ballads and demographic-cohort anthems, takes place in the ‘80s, when bands were still found in the smoke-wreathed clubs downtown, in CBGB’s or along Los Angeles’ Sunset Strip. No CDs or instant call-up of music that played subliminally in your iPod [...]
Call Me Kuchu
“Call Me Kuchu,” a centerpiece of Lincoln Center’s annual Human Rights film festival, is directed by Malika Zouhali-Worrall and Katherine Fairfax Wright. Kuchu is Luganda for homosexual, and the passage of Uganda into the world of laissez-faire sexual minorities’ rights is chronicled in the story of human rights activist David Kato in Kampala and [...]
Robert Mugabe. . .What Happened?
“Robert Mugabe. . .What Happened?” is a longitudinal study by articulate, charming director/filmmaker Simon Bright, who has spent many years in the country, of the longtime president of financially hectic Zimbabwe, is a daring recap of the life and times of President Robert Mugabe, going back to his earliest revolutionary beginnings, with original archival [...]
MEN IN BLACK: THREE
Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld Reviewed by Marion D.S. Dreyfus MIB fandom: This third installment of the alien-fighting franchise headlined by the lovable duo, slick Will Smith as Agent J, and dour Tommy Lee Jones, Agent K, still wows with jaw-dropping CGI special effects, terrific galaxy-saving home-office somewhere on Wall Street, with ever-more incidental extraterrestrials [...]
Fools Alley
Directed by Tewfik Saleh Reviewed by Marion D.S. Dreyfus Mid-May, 2012: MoMA plays the 1955 Egyptian film, “Fool’s Alley.” The year 1955 was significant because of many of my writing cohort [group of wealthy Egyptian Jews summarily ousted by Nasser, along with their entire families, in 1955—without any of their property or possessions]. I watched with interest as [...]
96 Minutes
Directed by Aimee Lagos Reviewed by Marion D.S. Dreyfus It is a gripping, and gritty, film, but though it is stronger than most contenders for attention today, it is a hard film to market. The teen market is not quite right; nor is a date crowd the right venue. It is a bit [...]
The Moth Diaries
The review in The Times by Jeannette Catsoulis was almost as careless as the news sections of that deflated, defeatist rag have become over the subsiding decades. Girls’ prep school. Oooh, put those lurid expectations to bed, guys. Teen girls in the normal rhythm of girls’ activities, until a saucer-eyed, sun-deprived weirdo appears, and ‘mysterious’ [...]
Magic Bird
Directed by Thomas Kail Written by Eric Simonson Reviewed by Marion D.S. Dreyfus Juggling. That’s what comes to mind as you sit transfixed by the terrific new play at the Longacre. Juggling gets its power from two things: The juxtaposition of multiple balls or knives or bowling pins in the air, [...]
21 Jump Street
Johnny Depp at the Cannes film festival (Photo credit: Wikipedia) “21 Jump Street” (directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller), currently cleaning up at the box office, is a laugh riot, if heavily dosed with an uninterrupted stream of profanity (Ice Cube). It is nonstop laughs as an inept team of new recruit cops (Jonah [...]
