Movie Review: I Origins (2014)

by Tony Dayoub

There's no way around it. I Origins is one of the worst films I've seen all year and maybe even ever. Worse yet, it isn't even so bad it's good. As nicely acted as it is, the new-agey romance is excruciating to sit through. It's one thing for I Origins to be hokey. That's not often my bag when it comes to romances. But frankly, I expected more from the team of writer-director Mike Cahill and actress Brit Marling, who last collaborated on the well-received Another Earth. That's one I hadn't yet caught up with and now, I'm not so sure I want to.

The Late Show - The Late Movies Blogathon: Giant (1956)

by Tony Dayoub

This post is a contribution to The Late Show - The Late Movies Blogathon running through December 7th and hosted by David Cairns of Shadowplay.

I'm sure it's been written about, but personally, I'm just speculating when I say that a classicist like George Stevens (Shane) probably had his hands full tamping down the Method-y exuberance of rising star James Dean when they collaborated on what would be the doomed actor's final film, Giant (1956). But why guess, when you can see the lengths Stevens went to in order to keep Dean from running away with Giant in the movie itself? Let's look at some screen grabs (off the new Giant Blu-ray and which can all be enlarged if you click on them) of three key scenes featuring Dean.

Basking in the Light of Café de Flore

by Tony Dayoub

After opening throughout most of the U.S. at the end of last year, Café de Flore finally arrives in Atlanta today. The dark, romantic fantasy, directed by Jean-Marc Vallée, has a distinctly Euro vibe that belies its Québécois origins, a fact which makes the film a more viable American art-house release than the usual Canadian fare. Intercutting between two disparate but eerily parallel storylines, one set in late 60s Paris, the other in contemporary Montreal, Vallée takes his time in revealing what links the plots. And unlike the typical movie of this kind, he manages to keep the viewer in suspense for exactly the amount of time he meant to.

Gone to Earth: A Conversation With the Self-Styled Siren

by Tony Dayoub

Sadly, my other gig at Nomad Editions: Wide Screen is finito. I have mixed feelings about this. At times, it felt a bit like an echo chamber writing for it because of the lack of access to reader feedback, the numerous problems that readers encountered in actually connecting to the digital magazine (is it a website, a mobile app, or something else?) and, most of all, what seemed like an almost willful lack of promotion by the management(who's in charge, Bialystock and Bloom?). In the coming year, as contractual limits on what I can reprint come to term, I plan on posting pieces I wrote for Wide Screen here, in full. This will give non-subscribers a chance to read some of my best work (thanks to some actual vetting by the great copy editors led by Susan Murcko—Matthew Zuras and his predecessor, Ruth McCann). I will always remember Wide Screen fondly for being my first paid professional writing position as a film critic. It gave me a chance to work alongside some wonderful writers like Simon Abrams, John Lichman, Kurt Loder, Vadim Rizov, and Karl Rozemeyer. I had the best editor in the world, Glenn Kenny, to shepherd me through the ins and outs of professional film writing. And I was honored to call the Self-Styled Siren—one of my personal heroines and an angel to many film bloggers—a trusted colleague.

Fortunately, the last piece to grace the cover of Wide Screen is a collaboration, my very first, with the Siren (aka Farran Smith Nehme). We discuss a relatively obscure Powell and Pressburger film, Gone to Earth (1950). I had never heard of it until she was kind enough to invite me to Miriam Bale's rare screening of a beautiful print at the 92Y in Tribeca. Head over to the Siren's place to read a few extended excerpts. I've posted one after the jump that supplements the ones she selected:

Richard T. Jameson on Bigger Than Life

This entry is a bit unusual. Richard T. Jameson is a personal hero of mine. He was editor of what, in my opinion, is still the best run of Film Comment (1990-2000). He now writes for outlets like MSN Movies, Parallax View, and the Queen Anne and Magnolia News, which hosts his online movie magaine, Straight Shooting. We correspond occasionally, and he submitted a write-up on Bigger Than Life which I can't post any part of here because it was done as work-for-hire. But I can link to it, and it is worth a read.

Thank you, Richard.

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Nicholas Ray Blogathon: Bigger Than Life (1956) and Its Influence on Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992)

by Tony Dayoub

In his films, Nicholas Ray often contemplates the psychodynamic turbulence hidden behind facades of normalcy. Bigger Than Life, with its focus on the degradation of patriarch Ed Avery (James Mason) speaks to the repression which plagues the seemingly typical fifties nuclear family. In this way the movie looks forward to those of another director, David Lynch. Though Lynch has explored similar themes throughout his work, most notably in Blue Velvet (1986), it is in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me where Bigger Than Life's influence is most strongly felt.

Nicholas Ray Blogathon: Rebel Without a Cause (1955)

by Tony Dayoub

Rebel Without a Cause is one film of which so much has been written I hardly have anything new to contribute. Whether it's the legendary tales that have sprung up around the cult of its star, James Dean, the mysterious curse (proposed by some) which took its three leads' lives prematurely or the film's embrace of the explosive Method style of acting you can find a multitude of essays which pick the film apart from any number of perspectives. Continuing my look at the Nicholas Ray's work, I'd like to look at the director's collaborative relationship with Dean.

Nicholas Ray Blogathon: Born to Be Bad (1950)

by Tony Dayoub

A lot of the fun found in Born to Be Bad, a minor film by Nicholas Ray to be sure, is in watching Joan Fontaine subvert her sweet screen persona to play the manipulative Christabel Caine. From the moment she bursts into the life of her publisher uncle's employee, Donna (Joan Leslie)—the jaded city girl Christabel is staying with until she gets her footing in San Francisco—small-town Christabel's default mode of advancing in society is a sort of clumsy, saccharine method of laying love-traps around vain, rich men whose latent attraction to her blinds them to her motives. What else can explain how Donna's fiance, Curtis (Zachary Scott), is the only one to fall for the excessively honeydrippy Christabel?

Movie Review: I Am Love (Io sono l'amore)

by Tony Dayoub

Director Luca Guadagnino's contrapuntally executed I Am Love might end up being the finest film I'll see this year. Quiet and understated in its performances while grand and operatic in its setting and musical score, it is all the more outstanding because it relies in part on the icy Tilda Swinton (Orlando) to communicate its passionate flourishes. This isn't to say Swinton has never seemed capable of such emotional intensity. But she isn't the first actress around which one thinks of fashioning such a succulent melodrama.

Rebel Without a Cause (1955): The Synergy Between Nicholas Ray and James Dean

by Tony Dayoub

Rebel Without a Cause is one film of which so much has been written I hardly have anything new to contribute. Whether it's the legendary tales that have sprung up around the cult of its star, James Dean; the mysterious curse (proposed by some) which took its three leads' lives prematurely; or the film's embrace of the explosive Method style of acting; you can find a multitude of essays which pick the film apart from any number of perspectives. Continuing my look at some of the fifties' output of its director, I'd like to look at Nicholas Ray's collaborative relationship with Dean.

DVD Review: Monsoon Wedding (2001)

by Tony Dayoub



This week, Criterion releases Mira Nair's Monsoon Wedding, an intimate look at the group dynamics of a family that gathers from all around the world in Delhi for a traditional Punjabi wedding. This edition, available on both DVD and Blu-ray, is a significant improvement on previous releases of the film. Though the screener received was only a DVD, even in this version its picture is sharper, cleaner, and more saturated with brilliant color than any previous version. One could go on rhapsodizing about how the film looks, but it is becoming a bit predictable when it comes to Criterion reviews (and that's a good thing). Here's the real reason why this is the definitive version to own.

Schedule for NYFF09's Final Week

by Tony Dayoub



The 47th New York Film Festival ends on Sunday. But part of the reason I came this week was because it is thick with films and events that I consider to be especially noteworthy.