I have the romantic’s weakness for tales of thwarted opportunities in the relationship department. Saddest and most frustrating are those for whom faulty communication, intentional or otherwise, generates the lion’s share of the blame. Ever read Poe’s short story “The Purloined Letter?” It involves theft, blackmail, a woman of royal lineage — it’s opiated Poe, what do you expect? — but we Little People can suffer in our more ordinary ways from the exchange of tainted information. I use the word exchange purposely: The action pains not only the victim, but the perp as well. Quebecois director Xavier Dolan puts […]

To get to the Lido — the strip of beachy land upon which the Venice Film Festival is held every year — one must take the vaporetto (or water taxi) from the Marco Polo Airport. While waiting for the transport to arrive, one is stuffed into a rectangular holding pen that sways and jerks with the current, provoking a mild but unmistakable seasickness in the more sensitive among us. Little did I know I was to experience almost exactly the same feeling the following morning while watching festival opener Gravity, Alfonso Cuarón’s first since 2006’s Children of Men. It’s an […]