February 5th, 2023
David Byrnes' American Utopia (Spike Lee, 2020, USA)
Ben Livant says:
James Brown meets the Blue Man Group as conducted by the love child of Mr. Spock and a king's jester.
March 12th, 2021
Gunda (USA/Russia, 2020, Viktor Kosakovskiy)
Ben Livant:
[1] Farm noir. Definitely on the level, though, ground level Bub, no Dutch angle about it The cows were too cowed to corroborate the crime, but the trip to the prison paid off anyway because one of the rosters crowed.
March 12th, 2021
New Order (Mexico, 2020, Michel Franco)
Ben Livant:
Given our conversation beforehand, I misunderstood the scale of the situation. I thought the dramatic setting was strictly within the confines of a single private dwelling.
March 12th, 2021
Black Bear (USA, Lawrence Michael Levine, 2020)
Ben Livant begins:
A bit of a head scratcher.
March 3rd, 2020
Family Obligations (Kenneth R. Frank, USA, 2019)
Variations on a theme: You can ghost your friends, but you can't disappear your family. Alternatively:
Everywhere you go, there they are. Family. Can't live with them, can't stuff them in a sack and throw them
in a river.
December 27th, 2019
Chameleon (Marcus Mizelle, USA, 2019)
Drawing on the conventions of crime/thriller genre, and deploying enough nifty plot shifts to keep the audience on its toes, Chameleon keeps us guessing until the final frame.
December 23rd, 2019
Trauma Therapy (Tyler Graham Pavey, USA, 2019)
Trauma Therapy is a purported thriller wherein four people of various levels of dysfunction agree to spend a weekend with oh so cutely-named Tovin Maven, a self-help maven, in a remote cabin deep in the nameless woods.
November 4th, 2019
Anya (Okada and Taylor, USA, 2019)
On its surface, Anya is about that most topical of contemporary issues, genetic modification. Often films that engage that "ripped from the headlines" scenario have a sensationalist bent, as they are as much exploiting the issue as they are illuminating it.
October 21st, 2019
Sunday Girl (USA, Peter Ambrosio, 2019)
At once familiar and refreshingly adept, Sunday Girl is a self-aware and clever examination of a day in the life of a young woman trying to get her romantic life back in order.
Natasha is at an important crossroads in her life.
Human Capital
Human Capital (Marc Meyers, USA, 2019)
Mainstream films in America often struggle when it comes to portraying class divides, not because it is hard to do so, but because those in charge of getting films seen are loath to honestly examine how for most people the American dream is a total nightmare.
September 2nd, 2019
The Riot Act (USA, Devon Parks, 2018)
In The Riot Act, a murder in a small frontier town leads to the haunting of the murderer, town patriarch Dr. Willard Pearrow (Brett Cullen).
August 1st, 2019
The Iron Orchard
Legend has it that back in the day a young sports writer trying to come up with an angle for his interview with the great Mickey Mantle struck upon an idea. "Hey Mickey.
June 23rd, 2019
Ophelia (Claire McCarthy, UK, 2018)
Even for those who have never read Shakespeare's play, the story of Hamlet has seeped into the collective unconscious enough that the key plot points are at the very least familiar.
June 9th, 2019
Ghost Light (John Stimpson, USA, 2018)
When Waiting for Guffman meets the curse of the Scottish Play, a comedy/horror film is born. Ghost Light is a wee trifle, a hybrid film that is not entirely successful, but just successful enough to recommend.
The Outsider
The Outsider (Timothy Woodward Jr., USA, 2019)
"A man who desires revenge should dig two graves." (unknown)
Revenge flicks and westerns are a natural fit.
May 17th, 2019
Bull (Annie Silverstein, USA, 2019)
Bull riding is a competitive activity of incredibly compact narrative tension. The whole thing takes place in 8 seconds (or less, depending upon the skill of the rider and the rage of the bull), and in those precious seconds, an entire story plays out.
April 15th, 2019
Tater Tot and Patton (Andrew Kightlinger, USA, 2017)
First things first. The weakest thing about this film is its title, which suggests a film redolent with saccharine pre-pubescent cutesy-pie charm, rather than the intelligent and nuanced character study that is actually the case.
March 12th, 2019
Streaker (Peter Luisi, Switzerland, 2017)
Beat Shlaff plays Balthasar Naff, a teacher and single parent, who is a man with a dream.
March 12th, 2019
American Adrift (Christopher James Lopez, USA, 2016)
Often when a film's narrative has been "ripped from the headlines" the work suffers from an Afterschool special feel, with compromised production values and perfectly unremarkable performances at the service of a story aimed more at sensationalis
February 10th, 2019
The Remarkable Life of John Weld (Gabe Torres, 2018)
The central figure in this documentary, John Weld, was a stuntman, journalist, screenplay writer, and memoirist ("Fly Away Home: Memoir of a Hollywood Stuntman") whose life was, as you might imagine from such a resume, filled with adventure and e
January 23rd, 2019
Stay Human (Michael Franti, 2018)
Michael Franti, musician, songwriter and social justice advocate, has long struggled with the problem of being critical of the many serious problems in the world, while trying to find the means to transcend them through community and connectedness.
January 14th, 2019
A Boy Called Sailboat (Cameron Nugent, 2018)
A Boy Called Sailboat is a wee fable whose ability to charm will be in direct correlation to one’s default cynicism setting. The more affable and hopeful one is, the more the film is likely to win one over.
The Florida Project (Sean Baker, 2017, USA)
Ben Livant says:
So powerfully did The Florida Project affect my emotions, it is a challenge for me to give it an intellectual reflection. I attempt to do so now because I am just as much intensely sympathetic to the ideological substance of the film.
January 10th, 2016
Diner (Barry Levinson, USA, 1982)
This talk-heavy comedy, set in 1950s Baltimore, marked Barry Levinson's directorial debut.
January 10th, 2016
City Lights (Charlie Chaplin, USA, 1931)
Many critics consider City Lights to be Charles Chaplin's finest film, no small accomplishment considering his long string of great films.
The film is a Chaplin tour-de-force, as he has his hand in almost every aspect of its production.
January 10th, 2016
Captain's Courageous (Victor Fleming, USA, 1937)
Rudyard Kipling's well-known novel enjoys an excellent adaptation in Victor Fleming's splendidly directed film.
January 10th, 2016
Babette's Feast (Gabriel Axel, Denmark/France, 1987)
The sophisticated and subtle screenplay for Babette's Feast, adapted by director Gabriel Axel, is based on a story written by Isak Dinesen, the writer memorably played by Meryl Streep in the biopic Out of Africa.
January 10th, 2016
Amarcord (Fellini, 1974, Italy)
"Amarcord" is the phonetic translation of the Italian words "Mi Ricordo" (I remember) as pronounced in the dialect of Emilia-Romagna, the birthplace of director Federico Fellini and the setting of this wonderful film.
February 21st, 2015
Frank (USA, 2014, Lenny Abrahamson)
Ben Livant:
To be frank, I do not think much of Frank.
February 20th, 2015
The Theory of Everything (UK, 2014, James Marsh)
Ben Livant:
I am not a huge fan of bio-pics, preferring instead a documentary. I am particularly suspicious of bio-pics about people who are still alive... on whose memoir the movie is based...
February 20th, 2015
Get on Up (USA, 2014, Tate Taylor)
Ben Livant:
Having gotten it up to review The Theory of Everything, I am now getting it up to review Get On Up. My treatment of TTOE was quite mean-spirited.
February 20th, 2015
Olive Kitteridge (USA, 2014, Lisa Cholodenko)
Ben Livant:
After I watched the first part of this four-part program, I was impressed by how unsympathetic I found the title character.
February 12th, 2015
The Firemen's Ball (Czechoslovakia, 1967, Milos Forman)
Ben Livant:
Sometimes teachers for whom I substitute provide me with passwords so I can access their files. I am presently covering for a teacher whose political point of view I have always respected.
February 12th, 2015
Wild (USA, 2014,Jean-Marc Vallée )
Ben Livant:
For a story supposedly about being out in the world, the wild world at that, Wild pays very little attention to the great outdoors. The natural environment is merely instrumental to the personal journey taken by the protagonist to find herself.
Alan Partridge
Alan Partridge (2013, UK, Declan Lowney)
Ben Livant:
I dunno. I laughed a few times.
January 24th, 2015
Nightcrawler (USA, 2014, Dan Gilroy)
Dan Jardine:
If you want a telling and prophetic portrait of a 21st century successful businessman, you could do far worse than study the story of Nightcrawler’s Louis Bloom. Lou (Jake Gyllenhaal) is one creepy cat.
Force of Evil
Force of Evil (USA, 1948, Abraham Polonsky)
Force of Evil helped define many of the elements of the post-war film noir.
The Killing Fields
The Killing Fields (USA, 1984, Roland Joffe)
Killing Fields is a brutally honest exploration of loyalty and fidelity during the Khmer Rouge's horrific Cambodian holocaust in the mid-1970s.
Based on the true story of Dith Pran (played by non-actor Haing S.
December 30th, 2014
Chimes at Midnight (USA, 1967, Orson Welles)
William Shakespeare's history plays, often overlooked by filmmakers, provide the basis of Orson Welles' adaptation of several of the Bard's works, including Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2, Henry V, Richard III, and The Merry Wives of Windsor.
December 30th, 2014
Scarface (USA, 1932, Howard Hawks)
Scarface is a potent, uncompromising portrait of the gangster life.
December 30th, 2014
Time Bandits (UK, 1981, Terry Gilliam)
Terry Gilliam's 1981 children's fantasy film is a curious mixture of adventure, farce, and satire that is intermittently entertaining -- if occasionally eccentric to a fault.
December 30th, 2014
To Kill a Mockingbird (USA, 1962, Robert Mulligan)
Robert Mulligan's lovingly crafted recreation of Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize- winning novel is an outstanding production on many different levels.
December 27th, 2014
Kagemusha (Japan, 1980, Akira Kurosawa)
Kagemusha is an atypical entry in the canon of Akira Kurosawa, the master of the samurai epic. At the time of the film's making, Kurosawa was gradually losing his eyesight, and his films were developing an increasingly impressive visual splendor.
December 27th, 2014
Stardust Memories (USA, 1980, Woody Allen)
Woody Allen's altar is the art of filmmaking, and Stardust Memories is his crisis of faith.
