Beowulf
Former students of the late, great UCSB English professor Frank Gardiner no doubt remember his beloved anecdote usually told at the end of his three-quarter-long Old English class.
Film & TV
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No Country for Old Men
Early in this latest Coen brothers film-a darkly funny, and then plainly dark adventure that ranks at the top of their films so far-our everyman protagonist (Josh Brolin) happens upon a grisly after-the-carnage scene.
A Talk with I’m Not There Writer/Director Todd Haynes
Todd Haynes’s film I’m Not There is the wildest mainstream film you’ll see this year. It’s about Bob Dylan, but Dylan is played by six different actors, including Richard Gere, Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, and Cate Blanchett.
Barry Goldwater’s Liberal Conservatism
New doc Mr. Conservative by granddaughter, which screens tonight at UCSB, shows the man in full.
The Carving of Ten Canoes
While Native American culture has been embraced and celebrated within mainstream American cinema with great frequency and effect, Australia’s portrayal of its indigenous culture has, more often than not, found itself confined to the peripheral. But as indigenous characters have weaved their way through Australian cinema, one name has remained constant.
Southland Tales
On paper, any work that faithfully re-creates the cultural components of a given point in time must inherently be good, in the sense of art imitating life. However, Southland Tales-Richard Kelly’s directorial follow-up to his cult hit mindbender Donnie Darko-ultimately fails to coalesce into a good film.
Lions for Lambs
It may seem like damning with faint praise to say that actor/director Robert Redford’s new film is, in the end, a “nice try,” but there it is. I would even go so far as to call it a profoundly nice try, and certainly one of the most well-meaning Hollywood films of the year. Although too talky and contrived for its own good, Redford’s project dares to address our current, vulnerable historical moment with a refreshingly even-handed, relatively nonpartisan spin.
Bee Movie
It does not fare well when you’re obligated to be compared with that other Jerry Seinfeld masterstroke, namely the nine-season-long phenomenon known as Seinfeld. The latter was a great sitcom, famed for being “a show about nothing,” which puts it on the rarefied plane of an Oscar Wilde comedy or a Mozart opera-the triumph of fiendishly intricate artifice over an absurdly empty thematic core.
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
Since its plot unfolds in scenes arranged out of chronological order, one can’t help but wonder why the first shot of Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead had to be the one depicting Phillip Seymour Hoffman baring his ass and thrusting atop Marisa Tomei in some of the most mechanical lovemaking ever glimpsed in a movie.
Lars and the Real Girl
It’s hard to know exactly where Lars and the Real Girl fits in the range of film genres, and that accounts for this odd, thoroughly lovable film’s fundamental charm and power. Lars hovers between eccentric comedy, drama, and European-esque drollery, and just as we find our responses to what’s on screen wavering, it poses a central, narrative-guiding question: How do you respond to a man who has fallen in love with an inflatable love doll?