Blogcritics Author: Randall A Byrn

Theater Review (NYC): Hair in Central Park

Randall A Byrn — Wed, 6 Aug 2008 08:54:34 EDT

"The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical" returns to work magic under the stars in Central Park.
For many of us who were teenagers in the late 60s/early 70s (or for those younger fans who came to love the album later), the songs from the Broadway musical Hair have an almost incantatory power. It may in fact be hard for us to separate our nostalgic inner teen from an objective critical perspective about Hair.This is by way of preface to my...

Movie Reviews: The 2008 New Directors/New Films Festival

Randall A Byrn — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 07:24:11 EDT

Four excellent movies that played at this indispensable annual look at new cinema talent.
New Directors/New Films, the festival that the Museum of Modern Art and the Film Society of Lincoln Center co-present each year in New York (appropriately in the early spring), is often a fantastic opportunity to sample developing cinematic talent. For me, the highlights of this year’s festival fell neatly into pairs: two narrative features...

Movie Review: Atonement

Randall A Byrn — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 06:53:29 EST

A wonderful first hour, great performances, beautiful images - but a deeply flawed movie.
Atonement is a frustrating movie that ultimately fails in its daunting task: to render in cinematic terms a story that is not just literary in tone, but in fact is actually about a novel, the novelist, and her intentions. I have not read Ian McEwan’s novel, which is widely considered a modern masterpiece, but after seeing the movie...

2007 at the Movies: A Look Back

Randall A Byrn — Sun, 6 Jan 2008 17:14:11 EST

24 good reasons to go to the movies (or rent them for home viewing) this year
It’s time to look back on the year just past and recall the films most worth remembering and recommending. Several of the best movies of 2007 divide neatly into contrasting pairs – very convenient for a year-end wrap-up essay. Serial killers inspired two very different, very fine movies, David Fincher’s Zodiac and Tim...

No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood Defeated by Pretension

Randall A Byrn — Wed, 2 Jan 2008 09:29:41 EST

The two most-awarded movies of 2007 are both well-made disappointments.
The Coen brothers’ No Country for Old Men and P.T. Anderson’s There Will Be Blood are the two most acclaimed movies of the year. Both movies evoke the atmosphere and moral landscape of Westerns without actually being cowboy movies. No Country for Old Men has the plot of a contemporary crime thriller, concerning stolen drug money, with...

Concert Review: Sufjan Stevens Premieres The BQE in New York

Randall A Byrn — Fri, 9 Nov 2007 10:51:36 EST

Sufjan introduced a new orchestral work in Brooklyn last week - but the real treats came later, in his song set.
In one of the best pop concerts I’ve ever been to, last week at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Sufjan Stevens offered the premiere of a new instrumental work for chamber orchestra (accompanying a triptych-screen film he co-directed), followed by a smashing second act – a dozen or so of his own songs accompanied by his own band plus the...

Theater Review (NYC): Young Frankenstein

Randall A Byrn — Thu, 8 Nov 2007 13:42:14 EST

Though it's overdone in nearly every way imaginable, there's still much fun to be had in Mel Brooks's latest Broadway extravaganza.
The new Broadway musical Young Frankenstein is nothing if not too much. It has to be colossal, larger than life, overwhelming – being a fun little musical is not an option. If it hasn’t knocked you out of your seat, it’s a failure. Or so the hype and expectation would lead you to believe. The preview audience I saw it with was...

Movie Review: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Randall A Byrn — Sun, 4 Nov 2007 22:59:39 EST

Brilliantly directed and acted, this excellent movie is being unjustly ignored by audiences
This is only the second feature directed by Andrew Dominik, and the first he has made on a large scale with a big Hollywood budget. It is a phenomenal piece of work. Visually, The Assassination of Jesse James is more alive than any movie I’ve seen this year, other than the very different Across the Universe. This gifted New Zealander...

Movie Review: Lake of Fire

Randall A Byrn — Sun, 4 Nov 2007 19:55:14 EST

This brilliant and incendiary documentary about the politics of abortion could be the best movie of the year.
Lake of Fire is a masterpiece, a landmark accomplishment in the history of documentary cinema. I can’t recommend it to everyone – its uncompromisingly explicit medical footage of abortions will be impossible for some viewers to sit through, and its straightforward inclusion of loony-bird fringe arguments on the anti-abortion side may...

Movie Review: Into the Wild

Randall A Byrn — Sun, 4 Nov 2007 09:57:52 EST

Although much too uncritical of its lovable lunatic protagonist, this is an exhilarating, epic-sized emotional journey.
Into the Wild succeeds in spite of itself. Sean Penn’s adaptation of the Jon Krakauer best-seller falls into an almost inevitable trap. It tells the story of the doomed eccentric Christopher McCandless, who cut off all contact with his family right after graduating from college to explore the West without money, a car, or other material...