Posts by Neely Swanson

It is inconceivable that there might be a present generation unacquainted with Jacques Cousteau, the icon of environmental protection. Liz Garbus, the multiple award-winning and Oscar-nominated filmmaker (“What Happened Miss Simone?” and “All In: The Fight for Democracy”), is about to the remedy that situation, focusing a laser beam on her subject that he deserves.…

You will experience very few more visceral and terrifying experiences than living through the January 6, 2021 insurrection in Washington DC incited by Donald Trump’s speech to his followers encouraging them to rebel against what he deemed was a stolen election. He urged his followers, his “patriots,” to Stop the Steal going on at that…

Mia Hansen-Løve likes ambiguity and in her new movie, “Bergman Island,” she has created a film that is as ambiguous as it is enigmatic. Chris, an actress, and partner Tony, a famous director, arrive on Fåro Island, the isolated site of Ingmar Bergman’s most famous films and his home for the last years of his…

“Happiness is the only thing more fleeting than time.” And so it is in the lives of Nick and Janine, soulmates in Oscar-winner John Ridley’s latest film “Needle in a Timestack.” Written and directed by Ridley, based on the short story by Robert Silverberg, our protagonists live in a near future that looks very much…

“Breathless,” the iconic movie that helped jumpstart the New Wave film movement in the late 50s and early 60s, has been given a glorious 4K restoration that will actually leave you breathless. Eager to watch this film that I credit in launching my passion for the cinema (not to mention my love of Jean-Paul Belmondo),…

“Deep Blues,” the 1991 Robert Mugge-directed documentary about Blues singers has been given a 4K restoration. Written and narrated by Robert Palmer Jr., the film is based on Palmer’s book entitled Deep Blues, a highly regarded history of the blues written in 1982. Commissioned in 1990 by Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics, Director Mugge and…

  In an act of mercy, no mention shall be made of the creative team behind this ill conceived poorly executed animated film. Clearly the adults behind this hodgepodge are too far removed from meaningful childhood to remember that even toddlers like a story with a clear plotline and action that makes sense. Did it…

Trisha Ziff, no stranger to the art world, should gain more fame with the release of her outstanding documentary on Joel and Jerome Witkin entitled eponymously “Witkin and Witkin.” I have known of Joel-Peter Witkin’s work for almost 30 years because a close friend collected his photography. It was the most graphically bizarre work I…

Tim Blake Nelson, always the bridesmaid never the bride. Well put that to rest because “Old Henry” gives him the lead that he has always deserved and carry this film he does. I love a good western and thanks to Tim Blake Nelson, writer/director Potsy Ponciroli has given us one. Nothing in Ponciroli credits would…

The first thing I did after watching Michael Caplan’s exceptional documentary on writer Nelson Algren was run upstairs to my library to see if I had any of his work. I remember the paperback copy of The Man with the Golden Arm on my parents’ bookshelf and its lurid, sensationalistic cover of the dish in…

The objectives of Thor Klein, writer and director of “Adventures of a Mathematician,” were very well-intentioned, but good intentions, while not exactly leading to the road to hell, don’t make an especially compelling movie. That is not to say that Stan Ulam, the mathematician, did not lead an interesting life; he did. The problem was…