There’s nothing in Control that we’ve never seen before. From director Anton Corbijn’s affected black-and-white photography, to the straightforward narrative, to the commendable acting, Control is an all too hyped-up film that plays more like a Sunday TV movie. Take away its subject of a tortured musician/icon who inspired similar sensitive, young would-be poets and what you have is one of the year’s most lackluster films.
(USA) “Hell is other people at breakfast.” Nobody knows the full Sartre quote better than Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman). A theater director living in Schenectady, New York, he wakes up on an autumn day to find that everyone and everything has suddenly gone wrong. Despite his production of “Death of A Salesman” being a success, his painter wife Adele (Catherine Keener) leaves him to go to Berlin with her wicked friend Maria and their daughter.
Category IIA. Another week, another sequel – but wait, “Elizabeth”? Don’t we remember it as some slow period film from a decade ago? Well, it is and it isn’t. For while in title and cast, this is indeed the sequel to that dark exploration of 16th century England, in spirit, “The Golden Age” is practically unrecognizable.
