by Richard von Busack
BLENDING IN TV and newsreel footage and actors indifferently playing US presidents, Transformers: Dark of the Moon tells how Transformerism was hushed up in the 1960s. Our US/USSR space race turns out …

By Richard von Busack
The opening two scenes in Super 8 demonstrate the graphic punch and keen storytelling ability of J. J. Abrams, one of the most exciting action filmmakers today. On the evidence of this, …

by Richard von Busack
WITH A strong theme of feminine mercy vs. masculine authority, with its acute longing for reconciliation with the past, with its tender faith that “no one who loves the way of grace …

(above: Michael Fassbender, Rose Byrne, January Jones, Jason Flemyng).
By Richard von Busack
A mutant of a movie, overloaded with plot and Easter eggs, X-Men: First Class tries to resolve too many conflicts with too-many underwritten side …

By Richard von Busack
The rather beautiful posters show Captain Jack Sparrow firing his flintlocks in both directions. That says it all. He is completely aimless here. He is the emblem of a franchise where everything …

(Adrienne Barrett in Dementia, 1955)
by Richard von Busack
Down with critics trying to sum up the themes and variations of a film festival when they could be talking about the movies themselves! (Blame editors looking for …

by Richard von Busack
DESPITE the deaths of Welles and Heston, cinematic narration muddles along somehow. We do have the molasses-drenched tonsils of Morgan Freeman, still the voice of Jehovah’s own unequivocation, and we …

(Opening Friday at
the Sundance Kabuki, SF
AMC Metreon, SF
Aquarius Theatre, Palo Alto
CIneArts Santana Row, San Jose
Shattuck Cinemas, Berkeley
CineArts 5, Pleasant Hill
Regency 6 Cinemas, San Rafael
Summerfield Cinemas, Santa Rosa)
By Richard von Busack
Portola Valley producer/director Jim Kohlberg, a …

by Richard von Busack
Like alcohol, this movie is taken as a stimulant, but the depressive qualities overwhelm that buzz pronto. It’s a major sedative to another cheated audience…it lulls, despite the (at least) 1500 edits, …

by Richard von Busack
(first reviewed at 13th UNAFF Film Festival, Palo Alto, California)
After being told his art was “daubery” by an artist he respected, well-born Russian archeologist turned artist Igor Savitsky gave up painting and …