As a kid I loved sports movies—for instance, The Bob Mathias Story (Francis D. Lyon, 1954), which I used to watch over and over again. (Bob Mathias played Bob Mathias.) But one has to admit that no other genre has gathered up so many instances of utter trash. Writer-director Szabolcs Hajdu’s Fehér tenyér has Hadju’s […]
Daily Archives: August 2, 2008
Russian writer-director Pavel Lungin’s raw, rollicking Taksi-Blyuz opens by delightfully reversing our expectation. The screen is black, credits roll, and we hear what could be artillery fire; but when the film proper begins on a Moscow night, the sound of war turns out to be fireworks. Presciently, Lungin might be imagining a candle flaring at […]
