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ZacharyWigon
Review of Tell No One
Tell No One Transcends Its Genre NarrativeTell No One Transcends Its Genre Narrative Tell No One, Guillame Canet's adaptation of American novelist Harlan Coben's drug-store paperback, is a telling example of what Jean-Luc Godard once said in regard to his film Contempt: "The best novels to adapt are not the classics, but the paperbacks to ... read more Posted on 04/27/2008 by ZacharyWigon After the MumblesAfter The Mumbles When I was younger and falling in love with the French New Wave, I was shocked to learn that this revolutionary tide of cinematic exuberance lasted only for a few years: most "scholars" of the movement mark the beginning as 1959, and the end ... read more Posted on 04/24/2008 by ZacharyWigon Second WaveThe release of Love Songs, the French filmmaker Christophe Honore's latest effort, marks a significant step in the careers of its helmer and its star. That star, Louis Garrel, teamed up with Honore once before, in last year's phenomenal Dans Paris. While Love Songs is not as stellar ... read more Posted on 04/14/2008 by ZacharyWigon 
Review of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
Mungiu's "Abortion" Drama Is A High-Water Mark Of The Romanian New WaveIt's no illusion that the Romanian film world has been thriving as of late. Two years ago, The Death Of Mr. Lazarescu was brought to New York and opened to significant critical acclaim. This past year marked the release of 12:08 East Of Bucharest, another Romanian film that was well ... read morePosted on 01/10/2008 by ZacharyWigon 
Review of Honeydripper
Sayles soaks his paean to the blues in Southern mythologyThe blind guitar player. The runaway train-hopper. The drunken knife fight. The last chance at saving the establishment. They're all elements of folklore and mythology, be it Southern blues mythology (the first three) or cinematic mythology (the last one). How many films have we seen where a proprietor is told ... read morePosted on 12/30/2007 by ZacharyWigon 
Review of Persepolis
The Political As Personal, The Personal As PoliticalAs evidenced by the recent slate of disastrously incompetent political films Americans have been subjected to recently (Lions For Lambs, Redacted, In The Valley Of Elah, et cetera), to make a film that combines the political with the personal is no easy task. It's a predicament that constantly pushes art ... read morePosted on 12/27/2007 by ZacharyWigon 
Review of Great Debaters
Washington's Second Pic As Helmer Misfires GreatlyDenzel Washington is one of those actors (we call them stars) who is a performative relative of the director-as-auteur; that is to say, his performances are continually self-referential and share common traits. Denzel Washington doesn't play characters; he plays himself. The Great Debaters, the second film that he has directed, ... read morePosted on 12/16/2007 by ZacharyWigon The Meaning of JLG/EFAIt was the ultimate contrarian statement - almost a cliche at this point - from the ultimate contrarian. After having announced, months ago, that he would accept the Lifetime Achievement Award for the European Film Awards this year, Jean-Luc Godard a statement on December 1st, the day of the ceremony, ... read morePosted on 12/04/2007 by ZacharyWigon Todd Haynes' Remarkable Balancing ActWith I'm Not There, Todd Haynes has come to exploit the position that he first found himself in when his last film, Far From Heaven, was released in 2002. Haynes' situation is a highly unique one; he's an extremely intellectual filmmaker who has managed to assume a perch from which ... read morePosted on 11/26/2007 by ZacharyWigon 
Review of Music Within
Feel-good biopic fails to reach beyond the level of facile sentimentalityThere’s something to be said for formulas. When formulas work, they work. This goes without saying in the realm of science. In the realm of art, the success or failure of a formula is given a bit more variability. One wants to follow the formula closely enough that its past ... read morePosted on 10/16/2007 by ZacharyWigon |
