Tag: Alfonso Cuarón

TV Room: ‘Disclaimer’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Adaptations, streaming, TelevisionLeave a comment

My review of the new Apple TV series Disclaimer was just published at Slant Magazine:

Alfonso Cuarón’s potboiler Disclaimer, an adaptation of the Renee Knight’s 2015 novel of the same name, begins with famed documentarian Catherine (Cate Blanchett) being fêted at an awards ceremony. Scenes of Catherine and her husband, Roger (Sacha Baron Cohen), living a posh life in their gorgeous London rowhouse are intercut with a storyline about a pair of students, Jonathan (Louis Partridge) and Sasha (Liv Hill), having a gap-year escapade in Italy. Meanwhile, a gloomier third narrative tracks Stephen (Kevin Kline), a widowed schoolteacher who seems to have lost every reason for living except for the drive to exact vengeance on Catherine for a crime that he believes she got away with…

The seven-part series premieres October 11. Here’s the trailer:

Screening Room: ‘Roma’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - Awards, Film - Festivals, Film - New, Film-Foreign, streamingLeave a comment

Alfonso Cuaron’s latest movie, Roma, is playing now in limited release and on Netflix. If at all possible, see it on the big screen.

My review is at PopMatters:

You could argue that Alfonso Cuarón’s gorgeously imagined and intimate epic Roma invokes politics when convenient for dramatic impact but ignores their context in order to move forward with the family melodrama at its core. Why, for instance, does nobody talk about why the students are protesting in the massive street demonstration that some of the characters are shocked to be caught up in?…

Here’s the trailer:

Department of Awards: Online Film Critics Society

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - AwardsLeave a comment

Chiwetel Ejiofor in '12 Years a Slave'
Chiwetel Ejiofor in ’12 Years a Slave’

The Online Film Critics Society, an international group of cinematic scriveners who are kind enough to count me in their number, today announced our awards for the best films of 2013. Not surprisingly, Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave and Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity took the lead, with five and three wins, respectively, and Cate Blanchett deservedly took another best actress win for her work in Blue Jasmine. Variety reported it here.

Cate Blanchett in 'Blue Jasmine'
Cate Blanchett in ‘Blue Jasmine’

We also gave a special posthumous award to the late, great Roger Ebert, “whose decades of work in criticism helped to popularize serious film appreciation to a wider audience, and whose tireless persistence in the face of cancer was as inspiring as any of the films he championed.”

Here’s the full list:

  • Best Picture: 12 Years a Slave
  • Best Animated Feature: The Wind Rises
  • Best Film Not in the English Language: Blue Is the Warmest Color
  • Best Documentary: The Act of Killing
  • Best Director: Alfonso Cuaron – Gravity
  • Best Actor: Chiwetel Ejiofor – 12 Years a Slave
  • Best Actress: Cate Blanchett – Blue Jasmine
  • Best Supporting Actor: Michael Fassbender – 12 Years a Slave
  • Best Supporting Actress: Lupita Nyong’o – 12 Years a Slave
  • Best Original Screenplay: Her
  • Best Adapted Screenplay: 12 Years a Slave
  • Best Editing: Gravity
  • Best Cinematography: Gravity

 

New in Theaters: ‘All is Lost’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - NewLeave a comment

Robert Redford and his lonely yacht in 'All is Lost'
Robert Redford and his yacht in ‘All is Lost’

all-is-lost-posterJust a few weeks after Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity showed astronauts struggling to keep from floating off into the void, J.C. Chandor’s one-man-against-nature drama All is Lost shows up, starring Robert Redford and nobody else. It’s him against the elements, in a damaged 39-foot yacht deep in the Indian Ocean.

My review is at PopMatters; here’s part:

“I think you would all agree,” Robert Redford narrates over the start of All Is Lost, “that I tried.” But for a couple muttered curses and some dry-throated shouts, this sentence plus a few others spoken to unknown persons are the sum total of what Redford’s unnamed character says during J.C. Chandor’s movie. Like his Margin Call, the new film shows the filmmaker’s precision and calculation. Although the story of All Is Lost might be quickly summarized as a man sailing a yacht in the middle of the ocean runs into trouble, the film doesn’t play with form or pad out its running time. There is greatness in this simplicity. If only Redford had been up to the challenge…

The trailer is here:

New in Theaters: ‘Gravity’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - NewLeave a comment

Sandra Bullock and George Clooney in 'Gravity'
Sandra Bullock and George Clooney in ‘Gravity’

Gravity-posterThere are a lot of things to say about Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity, but here’s what it boils down to: Go see it, in the theater, and make sure it’s 3D. Amazing film regardless but this is one experience it’s worth forking over the extra dollars for those big glasses; The Avengers 3D, it ain’t.

My review is at Short Ends & Leader:

Even with all the James Cameron-level technical virtuosity on display in Alfonso Cuaron’s elegantly suspenseful lost-astronaut drama Gravity, it retains a welcome element of austerity. The story boils things down to basics. After all, floating hundreds of miles above the Earth helps a character reduce their worries to the essentials: Oxygen, shelter, getting back on the ground without becoming a meteoric cinder. Of course, resolving those worries in this situation is more complex; it’s akin to solving a Rubik’s Cube while blind and in freefall…

Here’s the trailer: