Image Courtesy of MK2 Pro It’s curious how veteran filmmakers like the Taviani brothers could have taken “The Decameron,” one of the greatest books about storytelling, and turned out a narrative as blandly conveyed as “Wondrous Boccaccio.” The classic 14th-century compendium, so full of subversive humor and joyful licentiousness as its plague-escaping narrators entertain each other […]
Read MoreThe unresolvable tension between logic and feeling animates Eugene Green’s “La Sapienza,” an exquisite rumination on life, love and art that tickles the heart and mind in equal measure. The fifth feature by the American-born, Paris-based Green, “La Sapienza” compromises none of the filmmaker’s willful esoterica as it charts the intersecting fates of four present-day characters […]
Read MoreNo one has the time of their lives in “Desert Dancer,” a fact-based drama in which all the dancing is dirty — at least according to Iran’s Islamic “morality police,” the Basij. The principal offender here is Afshin Ghaffarian, a noted Iranian dancer and choreographer who had to practice his craft in secret before defecting […]
Read MoreA familiar relational dynamic — the responsible square vs. the hopeless screw-up — gets an affecting workout in “Manson Family Vacation,” a tale of two bickersome brothers who find tentative reconciliation awaiting them at the end of a long, strange trip. With fewer bigscreen acting credits to his name than his own brother and frequent collaborator Mark, […]
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