Friday Night At The Movies

Wow. Mira Nair's biopic on famed aviator Amelia  Earhart, the first woman to ever fly across the Atlantic, is not getting very good reviews.

Here's one negative slam for  "Amelia," starring Hilary Swank in what many thought might be an Oscar nominated performance. Maybe not. Here's J.R. Jones from the Chicago Reader:

"With any luck this biopic of Amelia Earhart will also vanish without a trace. Hilary Swank is sorely miscast as the legendary aviator."

Ouch.  

Roger Ebert liked it, however. And he's been on a wonderful roll these days. I love reading him even more:

"A perfectly sound biopic, well directed and acted, about an admirable woman. It confirmed for me Earhart's courage -- not only in flying, but in insisting on living her life outside the conventions of her time for well-behaved females. The next generation of American women grew up in her slipstream."

And then there's Lars Von Trier's "Antichrist," a masterpiece in my book. And no, not my crazy book as some have pointed out, my good book  (which is certainly not the bible). As usual for Mr. Von Trier, his work inspires love and hate:

To me, The Boston Globe's Ty Burr entirely got Von Trier's vision. Here's what he wrote:

"Like a nightmare you recall during waking hours, and then only in its vast outlines, Antichrist has the power to haunt beyond words. For better and for worse, it is exactly the movie von Trier wanted to make and a piece of staggeringly pure cinema."

Dana Stevens of Slate gets it and...doesn't get it...and then kind of gets it again. Even if she hates it, and I disagree, I still enjoyed her review. Sayeth Stevens:

"The last 20 minutes are horrifically violent, relentlessly claustrophobic, and irredeemably pointless. Von Trier has us on the hot seat, and he's going to walk us through his most primitive sexual nightmares--not because they'll bring us to a greater understanding of madness or love or grief, but just because he bloody well feels like it."

And here's what I thought of the movie on an episode of David Poland's Super Movie Friends. Warning -- spoilers all over the place. AND, if you're queasy about gore and mutilation, be aware. But "Antichrist" is a beautiful, scary, poetic work of art.