Friday, May 17, 2013

Life Imitates Art: Robberies At Cannes Film Festival

Purportedly $1.4 million dollars (that's this many -- $1,400,000) in Chopard jewels was stolen last night out of a hotel room at the Novotel Hotel in Cannes, France during the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. Coincidentally, the film opening the Un Certain Regard (A certain glance) category at Cannes Film Festival hours before the robbery: Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring, a film about ritzy robberies in celebrities homes.


How did the thief/thieves extract these jewels?

Monday, May 6, 2013

A Review: Pain & Gain

"I've watched a lot of movies Paul. I know what I'm doing."
                                                                                                          --Daniel Lugo



There are exactly two ways one could view this film:

Sunday, May 5, 2013

A Review: 42

"Gentleman. . . I have a plan."
                                   --Branch Rickey


Sports is not my strong suit, so I unfortunately cannot wager how well the film worked, in the context of the times, the flow of the game's content in relation to era and so on and so forth. But, I will also argue in a moment how that actually strengthens my view of the film, side-stepping a critic's point-of-view as a Baseball fan and clouding their judgement of the film. 



From what I understand, as usual, there are elements and story points in this that quite simply did not happen, and some, skewed and manipulated to suit the director's vision. So, as a man of film, and not a Baseball enthusiast, did I notice anything I found unsound, or clunky enough to throw the film off as the credits began to roll?

No. It's a very sound, very satisfying, very tightly rolled film about Baseball, the men who played it, the ones in charge, and the public embracing the first black player to rise from the ranks of negro-league player, to minor league player, to major league rookie of the year.