Film Review: “Il Posto” — Ermanno Olmi (1961)

Rating: 9 / 10 Life’s most agonizing transition arguably occurs when the fragile boundary between childhood and adulthood blurs and rather quickly vanishes; that emotionally quizzical overlap during which the insecurities and uncertainties of youth immediately and awkwardly merge with the responsibilities and gray-scale cynicism of adulthood. It’s a heady mix of fear and excitement…

Film Review: “Slacker” — Richard Linklater (1991)

Rating: 8 / 10 Slacker, Richard Linklater’s landmark 1991 independent film, is ostensibly a celebration of Austin’s self-proclaimed “slacker” culture, a loose-knit hodge-podge of eccentrics, oddballs, loners, artists, intellectuals, anarchists, pseudo-intellectuals, conspiracy theorists, superfreaks, what-have-you. The film presents no driving narrative, no real plot to speak of, and nary a whisper of a storyline. Linklater’s…

Film Review: “Bronson” — Nicolas Winding Refn (2008)

Rating: 8 / 10 There is a meticulous degree of staged composition in Nicolas Winding Refn’s utterly compelling Bronson, one which runs almost counter-intuitive to the narrative’s freewheeling nihilistic bent. This story of Britain’s most infamous prisoner, played with ridiculously brutish theatricality in a masterful performance by Tom Hardy, doesn’t really tell us a thing about…