Dune: Part Two movie review: shifting sands
Ugly, outrageous, brutal, and cynical; a genuinely terrifying film about power and politics as religion and control. There is little escapism here; hits square in the social plexus of horrifying 2024.
TE Lawrence
Queen of the Desert movie review: Gertrude Bell gets forgotten again
This may be Werner Herzog’s most conventional film, but its mostly untold true story knows what it means for a woman to choose a life of adventure and intellect.
Letters from Baghdad documentary review: Gertrude Bell, the original Lawrence of Arabia
One of the most cinematically beautiful documentaries ever is a phenomenal portrait of a shamefully forgotten woman who helped shape political history.
Mojave movie rating: red light
A spoiled melancholy Hollywood brat and a menacing drifter engage in a deadly dick-measuring contest that you will hope neither survives.
Out of Africa (review)
Like Lawrence of Arabia, Out of Africa is a story of time and place. Just as T.E. Lawrence’s tale could only have happened in the Middle Eastern deserts of the Great War, Isak Dinesen’s would not exist without the gorgeous vistas of East Africa of almost exactly the same time.
Lawrence of Arabia movie review: gone native
T.E. Lawrence was what a friend of mine calls a “transethnic,” like the couple of Italian guys you always see playing bagpipes in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. David Lean’s gorgeous film captures this enigmatic man beautifully.
