Tim Grierson

The Palm Beach Story

Wackily Ever After in The Palm Beach Story

Tim Grierson
Putting aside for a moment that they’re sophisticated, witty and breezy — some of the finest entries of Hollywood’s Golden Age — there’s something often forgotten about the films of Preston Sturges: They’re also totally ridiculous. That may seem pejorative, but, at his best, this writer-director understood that, done right,......
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Brooks Melchior

Tim Grierson
In 2001, Brooks Melchior was living in Los Angeles, working for Fox Sports Radio and ESPN Radio after a string of years calling minor- and major-league baseball games in the Midwest and the South. The Kansas City, Missouri, native had worked his way up and paid his dues, but now......
Gentlemen prefer blondes: Korine cozies up to Samantha Morton on the Mister Lonely set.; Credit: O’South

Kids Today: A Harmony Korine Retrospective

Tim Grierson
O’South (Click to enlarge) Gentlemen prefer blondes: Korine cozies up to Samantha Morton on the Mister Lonely set. What can you say about a film­maker whose least shocking, most conventional film is Kids (1995), an unsettling but very seductive look at New York City teens screwing, drugging and stealing all......
Not By Chance

First Los Angeles Brazilian Film Festival

Tim Grierson
(Click to enlarge) Not By Chance Presumably, adventurous American filmgoers attend foreign films not just to see great movies, but also to gain insight into other cultures. But if you judged Brazil's film industry only from the five recent offerings made available for preview from the inaugural Los Angeles Brazilian......
Photo by Karen Ballard/Universal Pictures

Secret Agent Man: Chris Cooper in the overlooked Breach

Tim Grierson
Chris Cooper is in Los Angeles for one day. He’s flown in to do some awards-season press, meet with director Spike Jonze about a project, and then attend a screening of Breach at the Aero Theatre, where he will be the guest of honor for a postfilm Q&A. “They’re okay,”......
The character actor at rest (Photo by Kevin Scanlon)

Hal Holbrook: A Chance to Be Himself

Tim Grierson
Hal Holbrook is best known for his portrayals of the famous (Mark Twain, Deep Throat) and the anonymously powerful (countless government/military officials, congressmen). But in Into the Wild, writer-director Sean Penn’s adaptation of the Jon Krakauer book about young wanderer Christopher McCandless’ tragic end, Holbrook plays a character we don’t......

Dylan by Dylan

Tim Grierson
After seeing I’m Not There,some Bob Dylan fans will undoubtedly accuse director Todd Haynes of committing heresy with his radical reinterpreting of the singer-songwriter’s mythic persona. But such dissenters would do well to remember that when it comes to desecrating Dylan’s good name onscreen, no one has done the job......

Unknown Pleasures

Tim Grierson
Rock films come in two forms. The first is the concert/documentary variety, the best of which dynamically pinpoint a band’s musical moment within the context of its era: the Maysles Brothers and Charlotte Zwerin chronicling the Stones in Gimme Shelter; Martin Scorsese celebrating the Band in The Last Waltz. Then......

Cruel Beauty

Tim Grierson
When Ingmar Bergman died July 30, the adoring appreciations that swiftly followed habitually contained severe descriptions of his work as “bleak” and “despairing,” which, while hardly inaccurate, created an impression that watching his movies amounts to a succession of miserable experiences. But even at their most despondent, his films were......