Even if it were not for Keira Knightley’s odd facial tics and total lack of intensity, Joe Wright’s lavishly-staged adaptation of Tolstoy’s Russian literature cornerstone Anna Karenina would still play like the tragic romance Oprah Winfrey thought she selected for her book club and made an unlikely 21st century bestseller. Gone are the long passages concerning the young, ascetic farmer Levi – Tols...[Read More]
The film opens with a slow-motion reminder of the bodies piled as carrion in the dark final days of the American Civil War; it will be the only moment of strict battlefield action as Steven Spielberg’s intimate, swelling epic Lincoln draws away from the heavily documented toll of the conflict (already given a definitive account by Ken Burns) and chooses to reveal an imposing figure rescued from hi...[Read More]