Movie Review: Closed Circuit (2013)

by Tony Dayoub

True to its title, Closed Circuit begins with a view of a London marketplace through a closed circuit camera. Gradually, the view changes from that of just one camera to two, then four, then eight, multiplying exponentially with each new conversation the cameras pick up from shoppers strolling through the street market. In this age of global terrorism, this is what life is like in one of the most wired-for-surveillance cities in the world. And director John Crowley's split-screen effect underscores how difficult it is to keep track of multiple information flows simultaneously. Just when you think you've gotten your bearings a truck pulls into the market, stopping illegally in front of one complaining vendor and occupying an increasing amount of visual space in each camera angle and therefore the entire screen. You don't have long to surmise something's wrong before the truck explodes, killing all of the innocent bystanders discussing their mundane life events minutes earlier.

Nicholas Ray Blogathon: Knock on Any Door (1949) and Run for Cover (1955)

by Tony Dayoub

Two of the harder to find films to watch in Nicholas Ray's oeuvre both star future svengali to statuesque blonde starlets, John Derek (The Ten Commandments): the social conscience/proto-youth film Knock on Any Door, and the Western Run for Cover (now easy to view on Netflix streaming, albeit in the wrong aspect ratio). Knock on Any Door is both a precursor to Rebel Without a Cause and its opposite number. Its misguided juveniles are from the bad part of town and far enough down the road of delinquency as to be considered hopeless. Run for Cover is the last of Ray's Western trilogy which began with The Lusty Men (1952). (Ray's The True Story of Jesse James would come later and is quite different from his previous oaters). But as different as each sounds from the other, the fact that the two are tied together by Derek's casting is just one indication of how close Knock on Any Door and Run for Cover are thematically.

You Can't Handle the Truth

Historical extras on its Blu-ray edition fail to make the case for The Conspirator

by Tony Dayoub

Just out on Blu-ray and DVD, Robert Redford’s The Conspirator, about the plot surrounding Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, is the American Film Company’s debut feature. Throughout much of the new disc’s extras, the company touts itself as a production house interested in shepherding stories mined from the annals of American history in the most accurate way possible. And while watching the bounty of special features included in the Deluxe Edition Blu-ray disc, an American history nut like me would find ample evidence that Redford’s 2010 film had been vetted by numerous historians. Included are 10 featurettes that dig into specific aspects of the movie, like the production design, costuming, or its main characters. The hour-long documentary, “The Plot to Kill Lincoln,” provides the historical background behind The Conspirator’s inciting incident in exhaustive detail. A viewing of the disc’s main feature, however, proves that if the facts contradict the story the filmmakers want to tell, truth will still lose out to fiction...

CONTINUE READING AT NOMAD EDITIONS: WIDE SCREEN

Movie Review: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (2009)

by Tony Dayoub

Last time we saw her, Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) had uncovered a conspiracy involving men at the highest level of her government, all protecting her cruel Soviet father, Alexander Zalachenko (Georgi Staykov), who Lisbeth had once torched in retaliation for beating her mother. Salander had penetrated this veil of secrecy with her super-computer-hacking powers, ass-kicking prowess, and a little help from Millennium Magazine reporter Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist). But the final confrontation between Salander and Zalachenko—a clean-up man for the shadowy organization behind the movie's conspiracies—left both of them bloodied, broken, and near death, while Zalachenko's near-invulnerable enforcer—and Salander's half-brother—the giant Niedermann, had disappeared. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest continues from this point.