The temperature today at the Mill Valley Film Festival reached 90 degrees, and the locals that I talked to could not recall a hotter Autumn in the festival’s history. When you consider that the nicest suit most locals wear outside is a bicycle jersey, it could have been […]
I was not able to make it to the first night of the 37th annual Mill Valley Film Festival, which opened with the Tommy Lee Jones-directed western The Homesman, introduced live by star Hilary Swank. Although I had already screened about a half dozen films that will […]
Kagemusha (1980; Akira Kurosawa) GRADE: A- By Mike Dub It might be hard to think that, at the age of seventy and already recognized around the world as a master of modern cinema, Akira Kurosawa would be capable of surprising us with a film that is as grand […]
Dersu Uzala (1975; Akira Kurosawa) GRADE: B- By Mike Dub Kurosawa has always been considered by critics to exhibit the most “western” style of filmmaking of all the Japanese greats. So it shouldn’t come as too big a surprise that Dersu Uzala at times feels more like one […]
The Zero Theorem (2014; Terry Gilliam) GRADE: C+ By Daniel Barnes In the opening shots of Terry Gilliam’s cheeky sci-fi dystopia The Zero Theorem, a bald, naked, future man studies the churning menace of a black hole on a large computer screen in an abandoned church. All the […]
Dodes-ka’Den (1970; Dir.: Akira Kurosawa) GRADE: B By Daniel Barnes Made in 1970 during a period of intense personal and professional turmoil, the ramshackle Dodes’ka-Den is a strange anomaly in the Kurosawa filmography. It was his long-awaited return to filmmaking after a string of high-profile projects withered on […]
