Reviews

Watching this exquisite documentary is such a joyful experience! It's as delicious and unforgettable as an exquisite meal with your favorite friend. The interviews with Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Ruth Badger Ginsberg and Colin Powell, all sharing their favorite Automatic memories make fir delightful company. Made with love and great talent, one will want to revisit this gem often!

The Names of Love is one of the most joyous and intelligent comedies I've seen in many years. It's playful, romantic, political, sexy, and filled with delicious performances! Sara Forestier is an absolute delight as Baya Benmahmoud, who takes the slogan "make love, not war" quite literally. She uses her intelligence and beauty to seduce bigots around her and entice them to change their ways. Jacques Gamblin is perfect as the much quieter Arthur Martin, who crosses paths with Raya and has never met anyone like her. The romance that ensues is hilarious and touching. The parents of both characters are also unforgettable characters. Poor Arthur's parents, for example, are always investing in the wrong technology: the Betamax instead of VHS, the laserdisc, a TV remote control with an extender that reaches across the room to change the channel....Rich, creative, playful in ways that remind us of the true joys possible in film!

Pure pleasure! A playful collage of ingredients, taking the viewer on a journey to places both familiar and unfamiliar but always delightful. The filmmaker talks to us about his story, gives up on it at a point, talks to his characters, even gives us two (count them) different endings....with existential musings from Groucho Marx and songs by Simon and Garfunkle along the way. The performers are all excellent, the humor is wonderfully performed with superb timing, and the citations from favorite films are more than homage...they are as delightful in themselves as the originals they honor. The black and white tribute to Manhattan during a piano solo is in itself a work of art! A surprise that will leave you both smiling and thinking and looking for new wonders around you!

Wild Grass is filled with visual joy and playful surprises. It left me smiling from beginning to end. With a brilliant cast and incredible cinematography that will playfully take viewers from blue skies above to the very human folly down below, the story celebrates cinema storytelling itself, as well as our human wish to find some of that movie magic in our daily lives, no matter the consequences. Resnais is now 88 year old (or perhaps 88 years young, more appropriately), for he has created a cinematic cocktail that leaves viewers dizzy with delight and ready to ask the local projectionist to: "pour me another. I want to experience that again!"

Jeff Garlin's film is filled with heart and laughter. As in Curb Your Enthusiasm, his screen persona is hilarious; but in addition we get to see both warmth and a sense of emotional vulnerability that makes the story universal. While the film chronicles his character's dreams of love, performing success, and weight loss, it will appeal to anyone who dreams of a better life. The supporting cast brings the frustrations and joys of his life to the screen in funny and heartbreaking ways. The simple joys of food, friendship, and trying once again once life has disappointed us are all themes. The use of music is creative and adds to the many pleasures of this film. Any fan of Jeff Garlin's TV appearances must see it!