LINDSEY BAHR
Julia Sarah Stone appears in a scene from “Come True,” a film by Anthony Scott Burns. (AP photo)
The murky and illogical territory of dreams and nightmares has always provided fertile ground for filmmakers. Not only can your imagination run wild on screen, but there’s even less of an expectation that it make any sense in the end. How could a creative soul resist?
In “Come True,” a lo-fi indie from director Anthony Scott Burns, the nightmare is always the same for a runaway teen, Sarah (Julia Sarah Stone), who sleeps on a playground slide and guzzles coffee to stay awake as long as she can. When you see the muscular, shadowy figure with the glowing eyes that looms in her dreams, you’ll start to understand why she has a perpetually haunted and twitchy demeanor. Sleep is not peace for Sarah and she’s starting to crack.
Chris Vognar
Special to USA TODAY
Glenn Frankel’s last two film books have tackled Westerns, specifically “The Searchers” and “High Noon.” His latest, “Shooting Midnight Cowboy: Sex, Loneliness, Liberation, and the Making of a Dark Classic” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 432 pp., ★★★★ out of four), unpacks an Eastern: the tale of two lost souls trying to get by in late-1960s New York, an unforgiving land of thick grime and ubiquitous hustles.
As Frankel writes, “New York was never a refuge – the city’s embrace was far too noisy, edgy, chaotic, and dangerous for comfort or reassurance. But it was exhilarating.” The same can be said for John Schlesinger’s 1969 movie, the only X-rated film to win the Academy Award for best picture, and for Frankel’s book, a masterfully structured study bursting with detail and context.
The new Cold War film “ The Courier ” about a Soviet whistleblower and the British businessman who helped transport information to Western intelligence agencies is both based on real events and people and also is very much the product of a screenwriter’s imagination. That’s not to criticize the film written by Tom O’Connor (“The […]
‘Little Nellie Kelly’: A Great Day for the Irish
St. Patrick’s Day, and the whole month of March by extension, is dedicated to celebrating all things Irish. However, many complain that American celebrations of “St. Paddy’s” Day are primarily cheap commercialism, ignoring Ireland’s traditional, genuine culture. Even “Plastic Paddy” celebrations, though, are few in 2021. After claiming St. Patrick’s Day as its first canceled event, the ongoing pandemic is dampening the popular March holiday for the second year. New York City’s famous St. Patrick’s Day parade was canceled in 2020, and the 260th year will be virtual on this 17th.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D., N.Y.) on Friday defended his refusal to resign by invoking the Democratic Party’s proud tradition of consequence-free sexual misadventure.