There are movies that make me go, “What is movie? Why is movie!” The biopic of FBI associate director Mark Felt, better known as “Deep Throat,” a key source for Woodward and Bernstein’s Watergate reporting, the distinctly unthrilling “Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down The White House” is right up there with the “Why is movie!” cohort. Directed by Peter Landesman, whose earlier work includes the episodic, inscrutably baleful “Parkland,” (2013) about the three days following JFK’s assassination, needs to play a hard and fast game to even near the portrayal of that moment created in Alan J. Pakula’s “All The President’s Men” (1976). Liam Neeson is present as Felt, but just barely. Like the dull, plodding screenplay, filled with talk but little that’s memorable, Neeson seems to sleepwalk through a dream of napping. Why is nap? With Diane Lane, Marton Csokas, Josh Lucas, Tony Goldwyn, Michael C. Hall. (Ray Pride)
“Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down The White House” is now playing at River East and Landmark Century.
Ray Pride is Newcity’s Senior Editor and Film Critic. He is a contributing editor of Filmmaker magazine.
Ray’s history of Chicago Ghost Signs is planned for publication next year. Previews of the project are on Twitter and on Instagram. More photography on Instagram.
Reading Pictures: Movies In Black-And-White Almost nothing has been written about Walter Hill or his great work. A new book, which the director cooperated with, is "A Walter Hill Film" by critic Walter Chaw. There's much I learned even as a lifelong student of Hill's work: "The Warriors." "Streets of Fire." "48 HRS."
A Movie Is A Mirror: A Review Of Top Gun Maverick "Top Gun: Maverick" is a tooled and calibrated machine for mass reaction. Yet the themes and tics of the urgently charismatic Cruise's body of work (and cocky body) are ever-present.
Sight Specific: Memory's Movie-Like Moments There are key considerations you can make about composition after the fact of witness or capture: framing, depth of field, the golden mean, I mean, let's write a book.
