All posts for the month September, 2014

Fort Tilden

Movie review by Greg Carlson Challenging the viewer to discover points of engagement with its two ferociously solipsistic protagonists, “Fort Tilden” is a wickedly funny satire sustained by the comic writing of co-directors Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rogers and the deadpan performances of Bridie Elliott and Clare McNulty as codependent BFFs/roommates as clueless about humanity […]

Land Ho!

Movie review by Greg Carlson Co-directed and co-written by Martha Stephens (age 30) and Aaron Katz (age 32), “Land Ho!” premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and was picked up by Sony Pictures Classics for theatrical distribution. A modest but picturesque blend of road movie, buddy comedy, and seize-the-day philosophizing, “Land Ho!” might be […]

Time Zero: The Last Year of Polaroid Film

Movie review by Greg Carlson Lovers of “instant” photography can vividly recall their whereabouts in 2008 when Polaroid announced the end of integral film production. Integral film, the description commonly applied to the white-bordered prints that sandwiched all the chemicals necessary for development in layers, is synonymous with both inventor Edwin Land and the once […]

Tim’s Vermeer

Movie review by Greg Carlson Tim Jenison, an inventor whose work in video editing solutions and computer graphics has made him a wealthy man, embarks on an odyssey to “paint a Vermeer” using an optical device Jenison believes might have been similar to something theoretically available to the Dutch master. The result of Jenison’s obsessive […]

Calvary

Movie review by Greg Carlson Father James Lavelle (Brendan Gleeson) receives the startling news in confession that he is to be murdered in one week – not for anything Lavelle has or has not done, but because the damaged soul on the other side of the sliding lattice insists that “There’s no point in killing […]