Seventies Cinema Revival: Nashville (1975)

by Tony Dayoub

"Only time I ever went hog-wild... around the bend... was for the Kennedy boys. But they were different."

In a way, Robert Altman's Nashville is a bookend to 1970's M*A*S*H, which addressed the country's misgivings about Vietnam behind the smokescreen of the Korean War and a madcap mobile surgical unit operating in Southeast Asia. While the city of Nashville is a much smaller canvas, it stands in for a more expansive concept, contemporary America at its Bicentennial. The memorable cast of characters—sycophantic lawyer Delbert Reese (Ned Beatty), womanizing folk singer Tom Frank (Keith Carradine), Napoleonic country star Haven Hamilton (Henry Gibson)—rival those of M*A*S*H in terms of eccentricities and surpass them in number. They form a microcosm of the country after the disillusionment of Watergate, the collapse of the idealism of the 60s, the assassinations that marked that era, a satirical apotheosis of all of the critiques Altman and screenwriter Ring Lardner, Jr. first lobbed at the country in M*A*S*H.

Blu-ray Review: ¡Alambrista! (1977) and Conversation Piece (Gruppo di famiglia in un interno) (1974)

by Tony Dayoub

Let's look at a couple of April Blu-ray releases that should be of interest to those who read this blog. The first is the Criterion Collection's ¡Alambrista!, directed by Robert M. Young (Dominick & Eugene). Originally a documentarian, Young didn't move into narrative filmmaking until 1977 with this film on the undocumented Mexican immigrant experience. Using realist techniques like hand-held camera-work and recording ambient audio while eschewing manipulative music cues, Young places the viewer close to Roberto (Domingo Ambriz). ¡Alambrista! follows Roberto as he makes his way from Mexico to Stockton, California and beyond in hopes of making enough of a living to support his family.

Invoking the Spirit of the West

How DVD extras enhance the experience of viewing the animated Rango

By Tony Dayoub

It’s unusual to see my annual list of best movies and not find some animated piece by either Pixar or Disney or both in a prominent position. Stranger still is finding that slot occupied by a first-time offering from an upstart animation company. But 2011’s offerings from the House of Mouse are weaker than in years past. Cars 2 is a hackneyed attempt to capitalize on the franchise’s licensing longevity, repositioning an annoying secondary character — popular with kids — as the new star of the series while jettisoning any of the emotional content that made the first film palatable to adults. And though the new Winnie the Pooh redo is an earnest stab at satisfying adults’ appetite for nostalgia, it adheres a little too closely to tradition to have the broad appeal of most recent Disney/Pixar movies: You’re not going to see Junior shutting down the PlayStation to go check out the cool, new animated designs of Tigger, Eeyore, or Piglet at the multiplex with his friends. No, for that there’s Rango (Paramount Home Video), just out on Blu-ray and DVD...

CONTINUE READING AT NOMAD EDITIONS: WIDE SCREEN

Movie Review: Rango (2011)

by Tony Dayoub

You know what's the best feeling for a moviegoer? Going to the multiplex with average to low expectations about a movie only to be greatly surprised by how much you enjoyed it. Though the buzz was starting to get around that the animated western Rango was the first great film of 2011, I still went into it with some trepidation. Animated movies seem to touch the heart of even the most stone-faced critics who often seem to give such pictures a pass simply for displaying a modicum of visual originality (I'm thinking of such mediocrity as Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Despicable Me, Megamind, etc.). But with a glut of animation beginning to hit theaters as each studio tries to get into the game, it is harder and harder to predict which will be memorable and which won't be. I'm happy to report Rango exceeds expectations.

Movie Review: The Killer Inside Me (2010)

by Tony Dayoub

Filmed once before in the seventies with the more imposing Stacy Keach in the role, Michael Winterbottom's new version of Jim Thompson's novel, The Killer Inside Me, feels creepier because of the casting of the relatively slight and soft-spoken Casey Affleck as the sociopathic Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford. True, the vacant-eyed Affleck played a murderer pretty effectively before as Robert Ford (no relation) in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007). That film's killer, a weak-willed worm with a serious case of hero envy, is driven by emotional problems which are quite easy to quantify. What distinguishes Lou Ford is the lack of emotion behind his congenial nature. This is the coldest nice guy in cinema since Martin Sheen's skinny Kit in Badlands (1973).

Movie Review: Toy Story 3

by Tony Dayoub

This post contains spoilers.

With the release of the near-universally praised Toy Story 3, the latest offering from Pixar, has come the inevitable backlash from dissenters. Ignoring two of the most high profile reviewers, who just seem to be aiming their contrarian rhetoric at those of us misguided enough to provide their sites with more traffic, let me instead zero in on writer (and friend and reader of Cinema Viewfinder) Ryan Kelly's well argued piece at his blog Medfly Quarantine, which honestly seems motivated from a desire to be objective about this box office phenom. You should read it for yourself, of course, but the general gist can be found in the post's second paragraph, which reads: