Lightning strikes again. As she demonstrated in her most recent film, “Manufactured Landscapes” (2006), Jennifer Baichwal has an eye for the texture of landscape. For “Act of God,” she and her husband and cinematographer Nick de Pencier collected stories of survivors of lightning strikes as well as capturing gorgeous footage of skies lit by epic fire. “The only way to carry on is to just be humble and a little bit in awe of these things we can’t understand,” says Canadian playwright James O’Reilly. The filmmakers capture something that takes one-thousandth of a second at twenty-four frames a second, becoming like storm chasers (and tale chasers) themselves. Novelist Paul Auster is an articulate voice, but an experiment in recording the neurons of musician Fred Frith firing as he plays guitar makes for odd aside. But overall, “Act of God” is far richer than run-of-the-mill Weather Channel weather porn: it’s sharp and sudden. (Ray Pride)
Seeing The Elephant: A Review Of Babylon The boisterous, brawling yet melancholy "Babylon," is a variation on film history, but more drawing for drama. It's gaudy and mean, celebratory and sorrowful.
Heart: A Review of Soul The real world is soulful, too, in Pixar's bountiful life of the mind.
Fine Line: A Review Of Shortcomings It's a season for the comeuppance of a curmudgeon in Randall Park's smart, biting "Shortcomings," adapted by Adrian Tomine from his graphic novel of the same name.
