Thompson on Hollywood

Now and Then: In Directing Debut, Farmiga Reaches 'Higher Ground'

Reviews

"Higher Ground," the actress Vera Farmiga's directorial debut, plays like a fugue. It circles back and folds in on itself, its repeated images — a children's book, worshippers in song, immersion in water — propelled not by forward momentum but by changes of key.

By Matt Brennan
|
January 16, 2012 12:42 PM
|
1 Comment

More:

Now and Then: In 'Contagion' and 'Children of Men,' Disaster Runs Cold and Hot

Reviews

The opening minutes of "Contagion" are all surface, literally. A bowl of peanuts on the bartop, a swiped credit card, an elevator button, the human hand: each is a vector of death itself, a pandemic already in motion. With the rasp of a cough, a title card tells us we're in "Day 2." It's terrifying.

By Matt Brennan
|
January 9, 2012 11:02 AM
|
0 Comments

More:

Now and Then: Why The Descendants Should Win Best Picture

Reviews

"The Descendants" starts slow, muddied by voiceover and unclear intentions. But it soon sneaks up on you, deepening — ripening, really — until it achieves something approaching wisdom.

By Matt Brennan
|
December 30, 2011 2:55 PM
|
2 Comments

More:

Now and Then: Two Docs Test the Limits of What We Know About Those We Love

Reviews

On July 26, 2009, Diane Schuler left the New York campground where she was vacationing and began her trip home to Long Island with her two children and three nieces in tow.

By Matt Brennan
|
December 26, 2011 2:22 PM
|
2 Comments

More:

Now and Then: For Woody Allen, the Place is the Thing, from Manhattan to Midnight in Paris

Reviews

When asked about Woody Allen's New York, critics often cite the glorious black-and-white Gershwin cinepoem that opens “Manhattan” (1979). I’ve always been partial, though, to the rough magic of Diane Keaton’s terrible driving in “Annie Hall” (1977). (See clips below.)

By Matt Brennan
|
December 19, 2011 12:16 PM
|
0 Comments

More:

Now and Then: With Recent Controversies, Maybe Critics Matter?

News

Something changed this week. As the days passed, each became part of a snowballing narrative about critics that seemed to me to portend a future less than bright. The New York Critics pandered to the Oscar horse race and ended up muffing the whole deal, losing their one chance a year to go out on a limb. AT’s criticism of the latest incarnation of “At the Movies” ignited the usual mixed bag of fury. And now David Denby’s gone and broken Sony’s review embargo on “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.”

By Matt Brennan
|
December 5, 2011 11:22 AM
|
2 Comments

More:

Now and Then: In TCM Battle of the Blondes, Who Comes Out on Top?

Grace Kelly (with James Stewart) in "Rear Window"

It’s been said that gentlemen prefer blondes (but only marry brunettes), a theory that the programmers over at Turner Classic Movies put to the test this week with the last entries in a November-long lineup of bombshells and ice queens they’re been calling “The Battle of the Blondes.” My first reaction was, “Score!” I duly noted the scheduling of some personal favorites and unknown treats. I paused, though, when a friend and I got to talking about whether or not Hitchcock, whose pictures are featured prominently in the series, was a misogynistic director. Was my enthusiasm reinforcing attitudes I’d never countenance outside a movie theatre? Does calling “Rear Window” my favorite film latch me to the same kind of sexism evidenced by the recent kerfuffle over THR’s miserable excuse for a director’s roundtable?

By Matt Brennan
|
November 28, 2011 12:54 PM
|
1 Comment

More:

Lumet's 12 Angry Men a Classic, Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

Reviews

They’re talking about a switchblade. If the murder weapon in question is one of a kind, linking the young defendant to his father’s death, they can return a guilty sentence — and the mandatory capital punishment — in mere minutes. "But what if it isn’t?" Juror 8 asks. He pulls an identical knife from his pocket and sticks it into the table. Still incredulous, the eleven angry men now on their feet leer at him. "It’s just a trick, a stunt," they say, the story he’s telling so unlikely — another person bought a knife identical to the one the boy owned and murdered the father with it while the boy was out — that “the odds are a million to one.”

By Matt Brennan
|
November 21, 2011 12:20 PM
|
0 Comments

More:

Apocalypses Now and Then: Von Trier’s Melancholia vs. Anderson’s Magnolia

Features

In his “Now and Then” column this week, Matt Brennan examines two visionary directors’ takes on the end of the world as we know it — controversial Dane Lars von Trier’s Melancholia (on VOD now, in theaters Friday) and Paul Thomas Anderson’s sprawling 1999 classic Magnolia.

By Matt Brennan
|
November 7, 2011 8:20 AM
|
1 Comment

More:

Brand New Spy and Cult Classic Alias Play Spy Game--by Different Rules

In this week’s “Now and Then” column, Matt Brennan takes a look at two players in the small-screen spy game, the new Sky 1/Hulu comedy Spy and J.J. Abrams breakout cult hit, Alias.