TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE (2007, directed by Alex Gibney, 106 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Everything I know about politics I learned at the movies. Take torture. It was watching all those WWII movies with my older brother that introduced me to the U.S. policy on torture and war, especially prison camp films like The Great Escape, The Bridge On the River Kwai and Stalag 17. In each of them, the U.S. soldiers were left fairly unmolested, forced by dumb luck to wait out the war in lousy P.O.W. camp conditions. Occasionally a Japanese or German commander […]

DIARY OF THE DEAD (2007, directed by George Romero, 95 minutes, U.S./Canada) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Before they can declare the New Wave of zombie films officially dead (no surprise they keep coming, they’re zombies after all) George Romero has decided to shamble in for another go around. With his fifth Dead film since his 1968 genre-sprouting classic Night of the Living Dead, Romero has scaled back his ambitions in order to maintain a control over production he hasn’t had since 1978’s Dawn of the Dead. With its limited budget, Romero has made Diary of the Dead more of […]

YOUTH WITHOUT YOUTH (2007, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, 124 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Back in September of last year, The New York Times ran an article called “Francis Ford Coppola, A Kid To Watch.” A.O. Scott’s article spun a tale of how the sixty-eight year old director had re-stoked the fire in his belly while working quickly and efficiently with a young Romanian crew on his brainy and reflective comeback. It was an enticing idea, that after poking around his vineyard for the last decade Coppola had kicked off whatever funk had led him to make misfire […]

4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS & 2 DAYS (2007, directed by Cristian Mungiu, 113 minutes, Romania) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC If this is the Romanian New Wave than I’d hate to see their Punk. Raw and unflinching, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days is a bleak journey into the darkest days of two young female students during the waning years of Communist Romania. Cristian Mungui’s unblinking look at a black market abortion won the Golden Palme at last year’s Cannes Festival and it probably needed that title to receive distribution in the U.S., its dour Eastern European outlook and […]

BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Me and the wife haven’t looked back after getting rid of the digital cable a year or so ago, what with the ubiquity of DVDs and our entertainment energies drifting towards the internet, television programming has begun to seem superfluous. While killing time with Google’s video search engine recently I was surprised to see that there is a poor man’s “On Demand” function on-line as well. On the Google.com homepage you’ll need to go to the upper left-hand corner and click on “more,” then “advanced search” and from there I chose to search for videos […]

HONEYDRIPPER (2007, directed by John Sayles, 123 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC After the recent long-winded political rants Silver City and Sunshine State, it’s a relief to see indie film Godfather John Sayles pursue this more conventional story, of Danny Glover’s struggle to keep his Alabama juke joint open in the year of 1950. At its best, blues fable Honeydripper reminds one of his early 90’s hit Passion Fish; both films transcend their conventional stories with perceptive performances and a smattering of Southern regionalism. Yet even with its de-politicized story, Sayles still winds up stepping in his own […]