• The East

    The East

    What I like about Brit Marling, who co-wrote (with director Zal Batmanglij) and stars in THE EAST, is that you can see her thinking, not in a mugging, brow-wrinkling, eyes-going-wide way, but in the faintest modulations of expression, a parted lip, a linger in the look, a shift in the weight. There is something alert…

  • To Rome with Love

    To Rome with Love

    Woody Allen’s cinematic tour of Europe, having taken us to London, Barcelona and Paris, now sets down in Rome. There’s an obvious Fellini tribute in how the movie is framed, à la Roma, with a Roman traffic cop (a thankless job if ever there was one) delivering opening and closing paeans to the city. But the…

  • Inception

    Inception

    Christopher Nolan‘s INCEPTION. The themes are familiar. Think Philip K. Dick, Stanislaw Lem, Jorge Luis Borges, even Calderón, Cervantes, Shakespeare. Dreams within dreams, life as a dream, the universe dreamed by the maker. The filmmaking is deft, the timing exquisite, the rhythms gripping. Yes, there are the expected twists (or not) and the predictable ending…