He’s Just Not That Into You
A Swan Dive Into the Hearts of Many Starring: Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston, Ginnifer Goodwin, etc. By Allie Willis Based on the wildly popular bestseller from Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo (also scribes for the recent Sex and the City mania) He’s Just Not That Into You thankfully veers from the overplayed blissful endings of most romantic comedies and gives it to you straight. Well, not quite straight. But straight enough,...
Chandni Chowk to China
Busy Images to Disorient Viewers Starring: Akshay Kumar, Deepika Padukone By Allie Willis A relentlessly long, tragically plotted, and weirdly befuddled film, Chandi Chowk to China leaves audiences literally sighing with exasperation as more ridiculous threads are weaved (unraveling along the way) into the drawn out Bollywood kung fu-action-comedy-musical. Chandni Chowk to China, with a run time of 154 minutes, begins with a...
Beauty in Trouble
The Mother of All Drama Starring: Anna Geislerová, Roman Luknár By Allie Willis Beauty in Trouble – loosely adapted from the Robert Graves poem – marks yet another successful collaboration between long-time director and writer duo Jan Hrebejk and Petr Jarchovský. Playing on the strengths of previous partnerships, namely Divided We Fall and Up and Down, Beauty in Trouble nonchalantly observes the tumultuous life of a woman torn between...
Anita O’Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer
The Needle and the Record Featuring: Anita O’Day, Buddy Bregman By Allie Willis As a relative rookie to jazz music, I was slightly surprised at how instantaneously my feet seemed to disconnect from my concrete self, how suddenly they were captured by Anita O’Day’s smoky and sultry rhythms, only to be reluctantly released after an hour and a half toe-tapping routine by the ending credits. A captivating documentary detailing the...