Google+ Cinema Viewfinder: Mia Wasikowska
Showing posts with label Mia Wasikowska. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mia Wasikowska. Show all posts

Friday, October 11, 2013

NYFF51 Review: Only Lovers Left Alive (2014)

by Tony Dayoub


A black velvet sky full of stars fills the screen. As the credits appear, the distinctive opening chords of rockabilly standard "Funnel of Love" start playing and the stars begin to streak in a clockwise direction. The image dissolves into an overhead shot of the song's 45 spinning clockwise on a turntable. Then a succession of dissolves and each time the camera spins and spirals ("...down, down, down..." as Wanda Jackson sings) closer into Eve (Tilda Swinton), a pale, white-tressed woman dressed in Eastern attire laying on a large bed, and Adam (Tom Hiddleston), a ghostly, raven-haired man splayed across a couch in more recognizable Western clothes, a guitar in hand. This alluring introduction sets the tone for Jim Jarmusch's most mesmerizing film in quite some time, Only Lovers Left Alive.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Movie Review: Jane Eyre (2011)

by Tony Dayoub


Compared to the couple of adaptations I've seen in the past (neither of which I remember well enough to dwell on) the most recent Jane Eyre best captures the spooky dread of Charlotte Brontë's Gothic novel. Between the previous adaptations' focus on the title character's early feminism and the romance which attracts many of the book's most ardent fans, the first thing to usually go is the story's eerie atmosphere. Not in this film version, though.

Monday, June 7, 2010

Blu-ray Roundup: The Touchstones of Character

by Tony Dayoub


A couple of last week's Blu-ray releases explore their central characters in relation to the dream world they reside in. The more obvious one of course is Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010). But another one—a trilogy of westerns by Sergio Leone—surveys its respective protagonists against a subtler dreamscape. More on that one in a moment.

Thursday, January 31, 2008

TV Review: In Treatment - A Cure for the Writer's Strike Blues

by Tony Dayoub



Due to the ongoing writer's strike, the return of dramatic TV is looking increasingly bleak. HBO comes to the rescue with In Treatment. They couldn't have presented the drama at a better time, or in a more accessible format.