Articles tagged with old hollywood

Barton Fink

George Booker — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 16:54:08 +0000

Legend has it that the script for 1991's Barton Fink emerged nearly whole cloth in an absurdly short period of time as the Coens were blocked constructing the labyrinthine screenplay for their gangster epic Millers Crossing. Despite its surface period setting, Barton Fink has the feel of a work dredged from the subconscious collective mind of the brothers, a caustically self-critical nightmare that resonates on entirely unexpected frequencies. At the time of its release, reaction spanned from rapturous triumph at Cannes to alienated befuddlement. Over

The Fall

George Booker — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:32:57 +0000

I, like many, am immediately suspicious of movies with a young child occupying a lead role. There's just something so insipid when a mostly uncomprehending actor is exploited for a quality that gets an audience off in some way, that quality with children being cuteness. Tarsem's The Fall is a film centered around a cute kid, but I didn't mind that here. He extracts a performance out of Cantinca Untaru that, while adorable, feels unforced and honest in the way she is allowed to be a curious girl, not a stage trained mouthpiece for vulgarized Hollywood notions of how