Posts by Neely Swanson

Daphné Baiwir has compiled an admirable bench of 1st and 2nd string directors who discuss their collaborations on the adaptations of Stephen King novels. King’s vast backlog of novels, 65 and counting, has been the source of innumerable films and television series, possibly as many as 50. He even publishes under a pen name, but…

“Love Life” can be interpreted both as a command and a noun. Artfully, Koji Fukada, the director and writer of this sensitive film, poses many questions and answers none. A melancholic treatise on life and love, Fukada gives us a portrait of a people wrestling with the very idea of family. In love and newly…

Ira Sachs’ new film “Passages” sounded very promising. A gay marriage is upended when one partner begins an affair with a woman.  Tomas, an avant-garde filmmaker, and Martin, a graphic designer, have been married for an indeterminate number of years. They have settled into a boring patch and neither can quite identify what’s wrong. After…

Immersed in the effect a tragic event holds over memory, denial, shame, self and the ability to move on, Alice Winocour’s “Revoir Paris” is that and more. Delving into the life of Mia, a survivor whose memory has been erased by the horrific night when she was one of the few to come out alive…

Alas and alack. The extraordinary Vermeer exhibition in Amsterdam at the Rijksmuseum is over. Running from February 10 until June 4, 450,000 tickets were allotted and quickly sold out, almost before it opened. There have been other exhibits of this Delft artist, but none as comprehensive. There are only 37 known Vermeer paintings and the…

“They Cloned Tyrone” is never entirely what you think it will be. Crossing genre lines many times, Juel Taylor, director and co-writer (with Tony Rettenmaier) surprises at almost every turn. Rather indeterminate in time frame, it might be the recent past or the near future. Cinematographer Ken Seng uses a dark, muddy palette with a…

If “The Miracle Club” starred Jane Brown, Susie White and Mary Jones this slight piece would have gone straight to the Lifetime Channel. But director Thaddeus O’Sullivan found a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for this little Irish film written by Jimmy Smallhorne, Timothy Prager and Josh Mauer. That pot of…

Christian Petzold, writer and director of “Afire,” is a metaphorical storyteller. His movies “Phoenix,” “Transit” and “Undine” are films where the narrative is only the beginning of what he really wants to say. Although not as immersive or allegorical as his previous films, “Afire” is, nevertheless, an exploration of emotions that are hidden in plain…

“The Out-Laws,” conceived by Evan Turner and developed by Turner and Adam Devine as a starring vehicle for Devine, started out as a pretty good idea. Straight-arrow bank manager Owen is about to be married to Parker and is thrilled to discover that her long absent parents will actually be coming to the wedding. That…

Brian Vincent’s documentary, deceptively about artist Edward Brezinski, isn’t really about Brezinski at all. “Make Me Famous” asks more questions than it answers, opening a veritable Pandora’s box of issues because this isn’t about fame or even money. It’s about the existence of artists who paint to live, who hope to make enough to continue…

“Biosphere” is that rare creature that has only two characters and a fixed set, common in theater and rare on film. It is unusual for film because, unlike theater, movies are primarily a visual medium, less dependent on the words, relying much more heavily on action driving the narrative. Amazingly, “Biosphere” succeeds on more levels than…

“Scarlet” is a poetic fairy tale, often floating like the red sails the heroine longs for. Directed by Pietro Marcello (“Martin Eden”) and co-written with Maurizio Braucci, Maud Ameline and Geneviève Brisac, it is loosely based on Aleksandr Grin’s novel “Scarlet Sails.”  Watching this film is like reading a lovely, lyrical elegy with a beginning…