Cinema

Spinning Plates: FOCUS in focus.

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“Maybe it’s the roofie talking, but this is really fun.”

If that “clever” dialogue doesn't bring back fond memories of The Thomas Crown Affair, To Catch a Thief, The Sting, or the indelible Charade, you may find yourself, like me, perhaps unnecessarily hostile towards the minor, midly engaging Focus, the slick but empty new Long-Con entertainment from Will Smith, who has been riding on the coattails of bygone triumphs for a fairly uneventful half-decade.

Cinema

The Shadow Careers of Our Favorite Actors

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De Niro, Cage, Cusack, Kidman and the Economic Realities of the New Hollywood. (Or why exhausted parents sometimes have all the cinematic fun!)

While New York film fanatics enjoy the crisp autumn weather, stepping out to revel in the just-begun 51st annual New York Film Festival, where features by Spike Jonze, Ben Stiller, Claire Denis, and Agnieszka Holland premiere, or perhaps head to the Film Forum or the Kew Gardens Cinema to check out the Salinger documentary or catch up with Woody Allen’s latest, I myself, a veritable shut in due to finances and children, will curate my own film festival.  The slate? Made up of pictures you’ve likely never heard of and without doubt never seen. My home team will include actors such as Nicolas Cage, John Cusack, Julianne Moore, Samuel Jackson, Sigourney Weaver, Val Kilmer, Robert De Niro, Aaron Eckhart, Nicole Kidman and Forest Whitaker.

Arts & Culture

The Best and Worst Film Experiences I Had in 2014: Be Guided By Them, Friends.

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My belated beautiful, dark, twisted list of my greatest film experiences of 2014 is an absolute jumble.  All the stuff everyone talked about and certain organizations even rewarded?  I haven’t seen ‘em.  Boyhood?  Not yet!  Intersteller?  Nope. Gone Girl?  American Sniper?  Selma?  Eventually, he says.  I briefly discussed plans to see Inherent Vice with the wife, but those plans fell apart.  Many of the films bandied about by those-in-the-know, from Birdman to Whiplash to Still Alice are films I simply haven’t encountered. What can I tell you?