by Sam Juliano
The extraordinary Allan Fish Bonanza Encore Series will continue unabated till Tuesday, October 28th, but in reality it will not end there by a long shot. The site will continue to exhibit Allan’s priceless work every Saturday and every Sunday until the middle of May, at which point it is anticipated Allan’s new reviews will be ready to post. I also reserve the option to post one of Allan’s reviews during the week should the new material lag off. In any case no matter how you read it, Allan will be here with us, even as he continues to make great progress from his recent operation in a British hospital. Thanks again to all who have stepped up to the plate with their selections, as well as with insightful comments and page views to keep the celebration going full throttle. Anyone wishing to make further suggestions, by all means add them to any current site thread, and they will be honored.
The supremely talented young lady Melanie (Jane) Juliano has again completed a stupendous short video, this time on the recent trip to Baltimore. Though it is up on FB getting some much appreciated raves this eight-minute summation of the trip will also be posted as the very first comment under this thread. As always’s Melanie’s editing and musical selections are fantastic.
With a school presentation (for Melanie) occupying a good part of the weekend, Lucille and I visited some older family members and the young son of a very close friend who went through an operation to solve a collapsed lung. We were running around all week, and only got to see a single film on Saturday night. But what a film it was. I’ll play conservative right now and go with a 4.5 of 5.0 rating, but this could still go to 5.0 after I take in a second viewing.
Birdman **** 1/2 (Saturday) Angelika Film Center
Gloriously dazzling and pulsating, and imbued with a maddening pace, BIRDMAN is an audacious and ironic black comedy that features a brilliant improvisatory percussive score, some of the best cinematography one is likely to see this year, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s film boasts some great and deliberately overacted turns from Michael Keaton, Ed Norton and Naomi Watts in a roller coaster of a film that goes places few films dare to.
