The Learning Tree (1969)
Even keeled Newt reluctantly follows his conscience and gives evidence proving Booker killed a man, destroying his friendship with Marcus, Booker’s son, and leading to a violent confrontation in a racist, rural Kansas town.
This film about the black experience during the Great Depression is a better film than Gordon Parks more famous movie.
Many Hollywood films illuminate the evil of racism, but this without resorting to manipulative sentimentality, this film explores the moral dilemma encountered by the oppressed, violence versus the high road.
The Canyons (2013)
Christian (James Deen) discovers his girlfriend is having an affair and concocts an elaborate scheme of revenge.
Paul Schrader wrote the classic films Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), and The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), but his directorial efforts, including American Gigolo (1980) Cat People (1982), and Affliction (1997) have not been as successful.
Written by celebrated novelist Bret Easton Ellis, this clunky, pointless film is only interesting because of the morbid fascination surrounding Lindsay Lohan.
Her costar, James Deen, rose to prominence in pornography indicating we’ve apparently crossed the Rubicon into a world where “pornographic star” is something you want on your resumé and not an act of desperation. Sadly, Mr. Deen is probably more embarrassed by this film than his sex tape with the star of Teen Mom.
Funded through Kickstarter, this may represent the future of the film business, but I hope it doesn’t portend of their future quality.
I think of Gus Van Sant as an avant-garde poster child, but a lot of his films are mainstream fare like Good Will Hunting (1997). Finding Forester (2000), Milk (2008), and Promised Land (2012). After seeing him as Christian’s therapist, I think of him as having horrible taste.
This wants to be a grand statement about the material soullessness of our capitalist system, but it’s just a crappy movie about crappy people who get what they deserve made to cash in on Lohan’s notoriety and shock us with its implied embrace of pornography as a legitimate branch of acting.
The Bridges of Madison County (1995)
When their mother dies, Carolyn and Michael Johnson discover her long-buried secret love affair.
Eastwood and Streep are competent, but the film takes the infidelity of Francesca Johnson (Streep) too lightly. She ultimately chooses the well-being of her family over her own desires, but why couldn’t she make this decision before a four-day Bacchanalia with Robert Kincaid (Eastwood)?
Like a summer camp romance, Kincaid comes into town, says hello, and Francesca throws herself at him.
The frame narrative inadvertently reinforces the frivolity. If you’ve spent your life protecting your children from an earlier indiscretion, it seems cowardly to use your death as a way to come clean. It would have been a better movie if her adult children weren’t manipulated to give tacit approval to Francesca’s unfaithfulness.
Simultaneously valuing familial self-sacrifice and self-love, this insulting movie collapses because it refuses to decide which one should carry more weight. Martin Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence (1993) is a far superior film which covers a lot of the same ground.