By Dave Kehr
If you've ever desired to dig round within the data for that excellent Sunday afternoon DVD and primary grew to become to a witty weekly column within the New York Times, then you definitely are already acquainted with considered one of our nation’s premiere movie critics. when you love movies—and the writers who have interaction them—and simply ensue to have of the top circulating day-by-day papers within the nation, then you definately most likely realize the identify of the intellectually astonishing author who has been penning items on American and overseas movies for over thirty years. And in case you known as the town of the large Shoulders domestic within the Seventies or Nineteen Eighties and trusted these trenchant, incisive experiences from the Chicago Reader and the Chicago Tribune to consultant your moviegoing pride, then you definitely recognize Dave Kehr.
When videos Mattered presents a wide-ranging and illuminating number of Kehr’s feedback from the Reader—most of that's reprinted the following for the 1st time—including insightful discussions of movie background and his arguable most sensible Ten lists. lengthy heralded through his friends for either his deep wisdom and incisive kind, Kehr constructed his method of writing approximately movie from the auteur feedback well known within the ’70s. although Kehr’s feedback hasn't ever misplaced its highbrow side, it’s nonetheless simply obtainable to somebody who actually cares approximately video clips. by no means watered down and consistently razor sharp, it is going past wry observations to an acute exam of the actual stylistic traits that outline the paintings of person administrators and be sure the which means of person films.
From present releases to special revivals, from classical Hollywood to overseas fare, Kehr has saved us spellbound together with his insightful serious commentaries. When video clips Mattered will safe his position between our absolute best writers approximately all issues cinematic.
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She also has much in common with the Mariel Hemingway character in Manhat- 10 tan—youth considered as a pure, redemptive force. But here, Edwards picks up at the moment when Woody Allen leaves off: where Manhattan is content with its sentimental conclusion, Edwards presses further, looking for the person behind the image. When George—through some complicated and very funny plot maneuvers—finally confronts Jennifer, Edwards discards the long lens, holding George and Jennifer together in the same frame, not as dreamer and dream but as two people.
You’ve learned something, you’re lifted up—but the conversation stays casual, unforced. ” In most movies, the discovery of the will—with its promise of $156 million—would mark the point at which Melvin first becomes interesting, someone special. Another movie would start with the discovery and move on through the courthouse battle, with Melvin, the lucky, tenacious “little guy” of sentimental fiction fighting for his rights against the big, bad corporate attorneys—Mr. Average American taking on the bosses.
Even the extras—a stripper at work with her arm in a cast, a stone-faced Indian in a game show audience—are people. Melvin, divorced for a second time from Lynda, marries again; his new wife Bonnie (Pamela Reed) has two children of her own, and Melvin’s family continues to grow, literally as well as figuratively. The motivating question of Melvin and Howard is, how can a man lose $156 million and not care? The answer the film gives draws on dozens of reasons, from personal psychology to imagined cultural attitudes, but ultimately it rests on the film’s profound vision of democracy, its hopeful evocation of a genuine community of equals.