Margin Call

A film that tries to capture the beginning of the end of the housing bubble, opens with a pink slip day at a major trading firm. One of the employees being laid off turns out to be sitting on something big and soon the unraveling starts. Not a word is mentioned about the reason for the collapse or what the collapse is all about. The films assumes the viewer has seen and heard enough to not bother detailing that aspect. Instead the focus is on the upper management of the firm and how they react to the situation. A calmness permeates the film that can throw the viewer off considering the fact that everyone is panicking but with actors like Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons and Demi Moore it is obvious that much lies below the surface. If you go in expecting Wall Street the film will disappoint. However what is portrayed here might be a more realistic view of the unraveling from an individual worker point of view.

Rating: * * +

Inland Empire

Nikki Grace (Laura Dern), a married actress lands a plumb role in a mystery film which has a checkered history. She soon finds herself attracted to her co-star. Devon Berk (Justin Theroux), in spite of her dangerous husband. But it is unclear if the attraction is fact or fiction. As the movie proceeds, the lines between the actors and the film within they are acting in begin to blur. Jeremy Irons is the director of the mystery film and he too seems to be left in the dark. The real force behind both films is of course David Lynch who seems to have imbibed way too many exotic substances when writing and directing this mindless, convoluted and obtuse piece of krap.

Rating: *

Stealing Beauty

October 21st, 2007
Lucy (Liv Tyler) travels to beautiful Italy to have her portrait done, chase the ghost of her mother and grasp the reins of love. Bernardo Bertolucci film is thick with sexual tension which shimmers like heat waves over the lush countryside. Liv Tyler dances around these waves in an Italian villa where a group of bohemian artists and friends have gathered to spend the summer. Jeremy Irons is poignant in his role of a dying playwright. But it is Tyler's ethereal beauty that captures the screen. You are often left wondering if it is film or phantasmagoria. For me the it was magical and it had nothing to with the film.

Rating: * * * *