published by Barry Paris on April 4, 2013 - 12:00am
The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Gamer is epitomized by Alex Kosov, better known as Koss in the video game kingdom where he reigns. He's the 17-year-old Pinball Wizard of his time (today) and place (Ukraine).
published by Barry Paris on March 28, 2013 - 7:54pm
Ponder this pontifical pronouncement: In the history of cinema, only three of a thousand great-books-on-film can be called perfect -- "Gone With the Wind," "Slaughterhouse Five" and "The Godfather."
published by Barry Paris on March 23, 2013 - 12:00am
A dark love triangle develops a darker quadrangular twist in the spellbinding -- if ultimately maddening -- "InContact," Israeli-American director Ann Oren's entry, screened tonight only, in CMU's ongoing "Faces of Media" International Film Festival.
published by Barry Paris on March 21, 2013 - 12:00am
The casual cruelty of the teenage pack has filled our headlines and courtrooms of late -- bullying and rape being perversely perennial crimes. Sad to say, there's nothing new about peer-and-sneer group pressure to do awful things collectively that you'd never do one-on-one. What's new is the generation's 21st-century obsessive/compulsive need to record and disseminate its antisocial behavior on so-called social media.
published by Barry Paris on March 15, 2013 - 12:00am
One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. It's "your F-16s versus our suicide bombers," a Palestinian tells an Israeli acquaintance. Innocent people -- delicately known as "collateral damage" -- die either way. It's just a different choice of device.
published by Barry Paris on March 8, 2013 - 12:00am
Omitting "the" before "Emperor" is a clever ambiguity on director Peter Webber's part. Military historical films from "Lincoln" and "Argo" to "Zero Dark Thirty" are the rage these days, and Mr. Webber's movie -- on the first days after Japan's surrender in World War II -- is no slouch. The title seems an obvious reference to Hirohito.
But it could equally describe Gen. Douglas MacArthur -- the supreme commander of occupying forces and de facto ruler -- whose powers were every bit as imperial as the defeated Japanese monarch's.
First order of business for MacArthur (Tommy Lee Jones, below) is rounding up the major war criminals and deciding whether Japan's emperor is one of them: Did Hirohito himself order, or at least approve, the attack on Pearl Harbor? What to do now with this weird dude dubbed a "deity" by his devastated people -- depose, pardon or hang him? Momentous long- and short-range implications included possibly igniting a revolt.
published by Barry Paris on February 15, 2013 - 12:00am
It's not the death, it's the dying that's so hard -- and constitutes the ultimate test of love.
That is the somber subject of Austrian director Michael Haneke's profoundly moving "Amour," and the challenge faced by its octogenarian protagonists.
Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) are affluent, cultivated Parisian music teachers, married for half a century. At the outset, they're attending a concert, afterward discussing the "incredible semiquavers in the presto."
But next morning, something is wrong. Anne won't answer her husband at breakfast. "Qu'est-ce qu'il y a?" Georges asks. She is taken to the hospital, then returns home -- paralyzed on one side. Stricken in more ways than one, she begs him not to hospitalize her again. He promises and takes sole charge of her care thereafter.
published by Barry Paris on February 1, 2013 - 12:00am
Seems there's a mini-glut of movie quartets these days. A "late" one of the Beethoven string type just opened here a fortnight ago. Now, on its heels, comes the vocal variety -- even later in the lives of its members.
"Quartet" is Dustin Hoffman's directorial debut, at the tender age of 75. It takes place at Beecham House, a home -- a very posh, stately home/former estate -- for retired musicians in idyllic rural England. There, septuagenarian opera singers Reggie (Tom Courtenay), Wilfrid (Billy Connolly) and Cecily (Pauline Collins) are busily engaged in rehearsals for the big annual fundraising concert on Giuseppe Verdi's birthday.
published by Barry Paris on February 1, 2013 - 12:00am
The "Stand Up Guys" at hand consist of a trio, not a quartet. They and their film might better have been called "Grumpy Old Crooks."
Chief among them is Al Pacino as Val, just concluding a 28-year vacation in the penitentiary for taking a rap and refusing to rat on his criminal associates. Now, upon release, he is met and taken home by old pal Doc (Christopher Walken), his diametric opposite comrade-in-crooked-arms, a soft-spoken man who paints landscapes, watches cable TV and otherwise enjoys a calm, cool daily routine.
published by Barry Paris on January 18, 2013 - 7:07pm
Breaking up is so very hard to do, says the song. The only thing harder is staying together, says "A Late Quartet," Yaron Zilberman's beautiful chamber film about the making of chamber music and its creators.
The foursome in focus is the Fugue, an internationally acclaimed string quartet preparing a triumphant 25th anniversary tour with its signature performance of Beethoven's Op. 131 string quartet.
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