Imagine picking up with Jesse and Celine of Before Midnight in their sixties, and you’ll get an idea of what’s in store in Le Week-End, Roger Michell’s intelligent new film about a middle-aged British couple spending a weekend in Paris. They are Meg (Lindsay Duncan), a teacher who is still gorgeous and vivacious at sixty-three, […]
Review: In Enemy, dangerous doppelgängers meet in Toronto
The Toronto in Denis Villeneuve’s Enemy is always covered in a thick, oppressive layer of smog, making the otherwise beautiful city feel eerie and uninviting. Aerial shots reveal a city under constant construction; the numerous tall buildings create a lonely place where you can easily get lost or go unnoticed. Despite the gorgeous shots of the […]
Review: In the Veronica Mars movie, the gumshoe is back and in fine form
Sparks fly between Jason Dohring and Kristen Bell on the big screen in the Veronica Mars movie.
Director Sebastián Silva on his psychological thriller Magic Magic
For the last two weeks, Chilean writer-director Sebastián Silva has been in San Francisco as the Winter 2014 Artist in Residence with the San Francisco Film Society, talking about his craft with high school and college students, as well as other filmmakers. He also gave a Q&A at a special screening of his most recent […]
Review: Mandolinist Chris Thile and The Punch Brothers reinvent bluegrass in How to Grow a Band
Is it possible to have a successful band when its members may not be musical equals, even if they are all very talented virtuosos? It was a central question in Cameron Crowe’s film Almost Famous about the often bickering, fictional band Stillwater, which had a guitarist who had musically surpassed his peers. Since it was also […]
‘Tim’s Vermeer’: Did Vermeer use lenses and mirrors?
In a time when painters were rigourously trained, how did the untrained Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) create such luminous, lasting masterpieces? According to inventor-techie Tim Jenison, he may have been equally adept at tinkering and made use of optical devices to help create a realistic look. Jenison sets out to prove this theory in Teller’s new […]