Radical dissent has always been central to the American project. Freedom of expression is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the US Constitution. And yet some ideas are so vile and distasteful that they provoke animosity wherever they rear their head. Welcome to Leith is an eerie documentary that shows how the tiny town of … Continue reading
Slow West, the directorial debut of John Maclean, may feel oddly familiar to those acquainted with the novels of Cormac McCarthy. Like works such as Blood Meridian or Child of God, Slow West depicts a lost American world of lawlessness overflowing with unremitting violence, bizarre happenings and characters that spout wisdom through a punchy folk wit. All this adds … Continue reading
Irrational Man, Woody Allen’s latest annual offering, has the distinction of at least being better than its trailer makes it look. The fact that Allen is such a household name apparently makes it unnecessary to compose the trailer of anything other than a few, mostly random, witticisms and a prominent mention of the director. It is sadly unusual these days to find … Continue reading
Noah Baumbach’s latest film credits its central inspiration more explicitly than most movies do. As While We’re Young begins, lines from Henrik Ibsen’s play The Master Builder appear on the screen. Solness, Ibsen’s protagonist, is worried that he has become afraid of the younger generation. He is encouraged that, instead of barring his door to young people, he should let them … Continue reading
![Wings (1927) with live score by Bl!ndman [drums] at the Muziekgebouw](https://amsterdamfilm.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/wingssight.jpg?w=290&h=290&crop=1 "Wings (1927) with live score by Bl!ndman [drums] at the Muziekgebouw")
Seeing a silent film with live music is a special kind of experience. One tends to go out of an impulse to indulge one’s nostalgia, but walks away impressed with the film’s enduring ability to captivate the emotions and the intellect. Wings was the third silent film we’ve seen in Amsterdam, and like the two films before, it … Continue reading
On watching To Be Takei one gets the impression that George Takei embodies much of what made Star Trek great. At its best, the franchise used sci-fi conventions to explore philosophical questions. It was driven by the optimistic view that humanity’s future lies in a more tolerant society, one in which people tend to work for the betterment of themselves and humanity … Continue reading
THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MILD SPOILERS. Whiplash resembles nothing so much as the famous first half of Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket, but instead of the U.S. Marine Corps training centre, its setting is the fictional Shaffer Conservatory of Music in New York City. One might assume the rehearsal room to be a more sedate setting than the barracks, and one would … Continue reading
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