Jonathan Rosenbaum's Blog: jonathanrosenbaum.com, page 36

Mandingo

From the Chicago Reader (February 1, 1998); updated and upgraded in December 2012. — J.R.


One of the most neglected and underrated Hollywood films of its era, Richard Fleischer’s blistering and undeniably lurid 1975 melodrama about a slave-breeding plantation in the Deep South, set in the 1840s, was widely and unjustly ridiculed as camp in this [...]

Five Women Around Utamaro (1976 review)

From Monthly Film Bulletin, December 1976 (Vol. 43, No. 515). — J.R.




Utamaro O Meguru Gonin No Onna (Five Women Around Utamaro)

Japan, 1946
Director: Kenji Mizoguchi



Dist–Artificial Eye. p.c–Shochiku. p. manager–Toyokazu Murata.
sc–Yoshikata Yoda. Based on the novel by Kanji Kunieda. ph–Shigeto
Miki. ed–Sintaro Myamoto. a.d–Isamu Motoki. m–Hiseto Osawa,
Tamezo Mochizuki. sd. rec–Hisashi Kase. historical adviser–Sonao
Kahi. l.p–Minosuke Bando (Kitagama (Utamaro), [...]

Beautiful Losers [NOBODY’S FOOL]

From the Chicago Reader (January 20, 1995). — J.R.

NOBODY’S FOOL
Rating *** A must see
Directed and written by Robert Benton
With Paul Newman, Jessica Tandy,
Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffith,
Dylan Walsh, Pruitt Taylor Vince,
Gene Saks, Josef Sommer,
and Philip Seymour Hoffman.


Since most Hollywood movies of the 90s offer unabashed fantasies, the hero’s success has become something of a given. Regardless [...]

Here’s Another Film in the Making That I’d Really Love To See

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/n...

Hope Springs Eternal [The Best Films of 1999]

From the Chicago Reader (January 7, 2000). — J.R.
I find critics’ near unanimity about hits and favorites a bit of a bore, even when I agree with some of their choices. Disputes are far more interesting, because they make artistic and political differences clearer and more meaningful. Perhaps because I’m drawn to cinema that can [...]

King Kong (review of remake, 1977)

From Monthly Film Bulletin, February 1977. — J.R.





King Kong

U.S.A., 1976
Director: John Guillermin



The Petrox Oil Company sends an expedition by ship into Micronesia, hoping to find petroleum deposits on uncharted Skull Island. Group leader Fred Wilson and scientist Bagley believe that the vapor surrounding the island may come from oil, but Princeton University [...]

The Empire’s New Clothes [NEW SUIT]

From the Chicago Reader (November 28, 2003). — J.R.

New Suit
** (Worth seeing)
Directed by Francois Velle
Written by Craig Sherman
With Jordan Bridges, Marisa Coughlan, Heather Donahue, Dan Hedaya, Mark Setlock, Benito Martinez, Charles Rocket, and Paul McCrane.

As the opening narration makes clear, New Suit – a satirical comedy about Hollywood suits — is loosely based on [...]

Short and Sweet: Kiarostami’s Experimental Origins

A sidebar for Film Comment (July-August 2000). –- J.R.




Viewers feeling flummoxed by Kiarostami’s features might have an easier time with his shorts. The most important are the nine he made between l970 and l982 for the film division of the Center for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, which he co-founded in 1969. [...]

No Way Out

From the Chicago Reader (August 1, 1987). — J.R.

Kevin Costner, suffering as nobly here as in The Untouchables, plays a naval officer hired by the secretary of defense (Gene Hackman), whose mistress he has been unwittingly sharing. While credited as an adaptation of Kenneth Fearing’s novel The Big Clock (which was made into a movie [...]

Rotterdam: Fury in Akerman’s Flat [1985]

From Sight and Sound (Spring 1985). — J.R.






With its continuing devotion to the independent and marginal, the Rotterdam Film Festival offered fewer peaks this year than last, but more than enough rolling happy valleys in between. Full-bodied retrospectives given to Jonathan Demme and Nelson Pereira dos Santos wove their way almost contrapuntally through the nine [...]