June 12, 2009
The directorial debut of Duncan Jones, a former ad exec and the son of the man who wrote “Space Oddity,” appears much indebted to Stanley Kubrick’s classic 2001: A Space Odyssey. (Remember, Bowie’s real name is David Robert Hayward-Jones, and he originally announced his son’s name as Zowie Bowie.) Astronaut Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) has inexplicable encounters on the dark side of the Moon, where he works with just a talking computer, GERTY, for company. The 2001 vibe comes in the cold, clean look of this moon station and the decidedly HAL-like computer. The reviews are positive. Cool trailer here.
December 18, 2008
With a title that sounds more like the name of a rock band than of a movie, with no American celebrities and a setting foreign to most people, Slumdog Millionaire is a revelation of storytelling, with compelling mysteries, well-drawn characters and a dramatically workable mix of comedy and tragedy.
The film, directed by Danny Boyle, uses the Indian version of the TV game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire as the tool to explore the history of the show’s most unlikely contestant, an impoverished tea server named Jamal Malik (played by Dev Patel), whose answers to the show’s questions were etched into his brain through critical life experiences, and are shared with the audience through flashbacks. Read More
August 6, 2008
Beginning in the 1960s, a number of winemakers in California aspired to create wines rivaling the legendary vintages of Bordeaux and Burgundy. By the early 1970s, some had produced wines they believed were as good as any in the world, but had trouble marketing them. These California vintners entered French wine competitions that were allegedly “blind” taste tests. However, Read More
