Breach, Billy Ray, 2007

Ray's espionage yarn is an engaging, if workmanlike, rendering of America's most egregious security gaffe. Taut direction, efficient scripting, and an otherwise capable cast work to overcome Ryan Phillippe's uninspired lead performance.

Au Coeur du Mensonge (The Color of Lies), Claude Chabrol, 1999

This small town police procedural, centering on a set of strange murders in an otherwise quiet coastal village, is no more or less than another solid entry in the remarkably consistent Chabrol filmography.

Pocketcinephile 2006 Top 10 @ Senses of Cinema

Art Variables and Life Variables in La Belle Noiseuse

A tremendous examination of the Rivette film (recently profiled on pocketcinephile), can be found in the new issue of Senses of Cinema.

La Belle Noiseuse, Jacques Rivette, 1991

Rivette, epic poet of the Nouvelle Vague and long an observer of the creative process, here trains his lens on a painter's stuggle with his masterwork. At nearly four hours, Rivette's is a decidely deliberate, yet remarkably focused work with Michel Piccoli and Emmanuelle Beart impressively inhabiting the respective skins of artist and muse.