NYC Film Critic

Whiz Kids
Directed by Tom Shepard
Co-Director: Tina DiFeliciantonio
Written and Edited by Jane C. Wagner
***

Growing up, I was never what you’d call a science whiz.  I was interested in the subject sure, but didn’t have a real aptitude for it.  In high school, biology and chemistry class were the twin banes of my existence and I never bothered to try my hand at senior-year physics.  The pattern repeated itself in college, where I made sure to find the least intensive science courses possible to fulfill those credit requirements.  (In my freshman year, I did take a chance and enrolled in a cosmology course only to drop it after barely being able to answer a single question on the first exam.)  Even though science isn’t my field, I’ve always had an admiration for the folks that do find pleasure and passion in it, because those are the people who are really going to be changing the world while the rest of us enjoy the benefits of their accomplishments.

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кухни

Sex and the City 2
Written and Directed by Michael Patrick King
Starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristen Davis and Cynthia Nixon
**

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Directed by Mike Newell
Screenplay by Boaz Yakin, Doug Miro, Carlo Bernard
Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Artertron, Sir Ben Kingsley, Alfred Molina
*1/2

At first glance, this weekend’s two major studio releases would appear to have little in common beyond the fact that they each take place in the Middle Eastern desert.  When you watch them back-to-back as I did though, it’s clear that they share more than a setting; both Sex and the City 2 and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time are this summer’s prime examples of blockbuster moviemaking at its most creatively bankrupt, big-budget behemoths that prize fantasy excess above all else, including a well-told story, compelling characters and recognizable human emotions and behavior.

Picasso and Braque Go to the Movies
Directed by Arne Glimcher
***

Film has been the dominant form of mass art and entertainment for so long it’s difficult for contemporary audiences to conceive of a time when the very idea of “moving pictures” seemed incredible.

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After the Cup: Sons of Sakhnin United
Directed by Christopher Browne
***

One of the television highlights of the past year has been ESPN’s ambitious series 30 for 30, 30 documentaries covering 30 significant events in the past 30 years of sports history. The great thing about the series is that it doesn’t demand any familiarity with, or even a great affinity for, professional and/or collegiate athletics. Instead, almost every installment uses its specific subject as a jumping off point to explore larger, distinctly non-sports related issues.

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Metropolis
Directed by Fritz Lang
****

My first viewing of Fritz Lang’s landmark 1927 film Metropolis happened sometime in the early ‘90s via an unassuming VHS tape (remember those?) that lived in my family’s home video collection.  Presentation-wise, I couldn’t have asked for a worse way to see the film for the first time.  The transfer was sub-par resulting in images that were scratched and faded, the intertitles were barely legible and because it was one of those EP video cassettes (that’s “extended play” to anyone born after 1995) I was constantly fiddling with the VCR settings to get the movie to play at the right speed.

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Iron Man 2
Directed by Jon Favreau
Screenplay by Justin Theroux
Starring Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Scarlett Johansson, Mickey Rourke, Sam Rockwell.
**1/2

It’s been six months since Tony Stark revealed to the world that he’s the metallic avenger (not to be confused with the capital-A Avengers, but more on them later) known as Iron Man and in that time, much has changed.

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A Nightmare on Elm Street
Directed by Samuel Bayer
Starring Jackie Earle Haley, Rooney Mara, Kyle Gallner, Thomas Dekker
*1/2

There are those horror filmmakers who have a genuine respect for the genre and always strive to craft distinctive movies that entertain and terrify, even if the finished product doesn’t always measure up to their ambitions.

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Behind the Burly Q
Directed by Leslie Zemeckis
**1/2

If nothing else, Leslie Zemeckis’ new documentary Behind the Burly Q functions as a lovingly made scrapbook for the memories of the men and women that populated the burlesque scene in the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s.
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Kick-Ass
Directed by Matthew Vaughn
Starring Aaron Johnson, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Chloë Grace Moretz, Nicolas Cage.
**1/2

Matthew Vaughn’s Kick-Ass begins in the real world and ends up firmly in comic-book land.  I suppose that’s only appropriate seeing as how the film is adapted from a comic-book, an eight-issue limited series by celebrated comics scribe Mark Millar.  On the page at least, Millar aimed for a tone that was both outlandish and grittily real; the violence was over-the-top (the amount of blood and gore on display rivals an Evil Dead flick) but the characters were all too human, marching into battle with little besides their fists, batons, or, in one case, a flame-thrower, and frequently coming away with serious injuries. 

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When You’re Strange: A Film About The Doors
Directed by Tom DiCillo
**

Tom DiCillo’s new rock doc When You’re Strange is subtitled A Film About The Doors, but really it’s a film about that band’s iconic frontman, one Jim Morrison, a controversial figure who continues inspire devotion and loathing in equal measure almost forty years after his death.

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