7 FACES OF DR. LAO – Tony Randall – d: George Pal

7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964)
Direction: George Pal
Screenplay: Charles Beaumont; from Charles G. Finney’s The Circus of Dr. Lao
Cast: Tony Randall, Barbara Eden, Arthur O’Connell, John Ericson, Noah Beery Jr, Lee Patrick, Minerva Urecal, John Qualen

 
Director George Pal’s 7 Faces of Dr. Lao surprises on many levels: its witty screenplay by Twilight Zone writer Charles Beaumont, an odd assortment of well-defined characters, a brave performance by Tony Randall, and some of the best special effects of the time. 
In the film, a strange traveling magician drifts into a small western American town with the announcement that he is bringing with him a "Magic Circus." Calling himself "Dr. Lao," the eccentric Chinese character places his [...]

Akira Kurosawa’s RAN Review – Final

Tatsuya Nakadai, Daisuke Ryu in Ran (Winstar Cinema)

RAN Review: Part II
Asakazu Nakai, Takao Saitô, and Masaharu Ueda’s cinematography shows that there’s much more to great cinematography than just good scenery. One needs only look at films like Sean Penn’s Into the Wild or Walter Salles’ The Motorcycle Diaries to see that beautiful mountainscapes do not equal great art. Ran’s cinematographers, by contrast, show how framing and flattening out imagery with telephoto lenses can render reality into a sort of Japanese flat art depiction of the world.
That also illustrates the superfluity and flat out wrongheadedness of most critical writing on the use of certain types of lenses to get certain effects, whether in this film or in general. Why? Because [...]

RAN Review II

Mieko Harada in Ran (Winstar Cinema)

RAN Review: Part I
Also, like Lear, all in the clan end up dead. But there are some major differences, aside from the depth and realism found in Kurosawa’s film. Lear’s past is an unknown. When we observe his suffering, we are apt to feel pity for him as a character — even in poorly wrought scenes. Hidetora, on the other hand, is (or was) a monster whose life entailed almost daily murder for fifty-plus years. Thus, the film we see is an example of karma, not life’s randomness and folly. This also vitiates another of the most cribbed points of criticism about Ran (one repeated in Stephen Prince’s audio commentary) — that it is somehow [...]

RAN d: Akira Kurosawa

Ran (1985)
Direction: Akira Kurosawa
Screenplay: Akira Kurosawa, Masato Ide, and Hideo Oguni
Cast: Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Terao, Jinpachi Nezu, Daisuke Ryû, Mieko Harada, Yoshiko Miyazaki, Hisashi Igawa
 

Akira Kurosawa’s Ran (Winstar Cinema)
 

Critical cribbing is a term I coined re: the tendency of critics, in all fields, to not engage a work of art directly, but rather to fall back on lazily repeating claims that have been made by others about the thing they are reviewing. Sometimes, these are positive blurbs; other times, these are bits of misinformation repeated endlessly — such as the characters’ names in films like Last Year in Marienbad or Blowup.
A typical example of critical cribbing comes in reviews of Akira Kurosawa’s 27th (of 30) films, [...]

THE LOSS OF A TEARDROP DIAMOND – Bryce Dallas Howard, Chris Evans, Ellen Burstyn

The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond (2009)
Direction: Jodie Markell
Screenplay: Tennessee Williams
Cast: Bryce Dallas Howard, Chris Evans, Ellen Burstyn, Ann-Margret, Will Patton, Mamie Gummer, Jessica Collins
 

Bryce Dallas Howard in The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond
 

A new production of a little-known, decades-old screenplay from a celebrated — indeed, legendary — writer invites cautious response. After all, if a work is dynamic and exceptional, how could it remain undeveloped for many years? The answer is pleasingly complicated when it comes to Tennessee Williams‘ The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond. Written directly for the screen in 1957, the work withered until selected by Jodie Markell for her directorial debut feature.
The unmistakable Williams heroine is Fisher Willow (Bryce Dallas Howard), a pariah [...]

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