Youth Without YouthReaching for the stars  December 19,
2007 2:10:09 PM
VIDEO: Watch the trailer for Youth Without Youth.
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When a film starts out with a Romanian professor (Tim Roth) who’s been granted eternal youth, superhuman intelligence, and a doppelgänger by a lightning strike and is writing a book summarizing all knowledge while avoiding capture by the Nazis, perhaps it should avoid adding a woman (Alexandra Maria Lara) who’s the reincarnation of a seventh-century Buddhist shaman as a love interest. But try telling Francis Coppola that, especially since he hasn’t uncorked a lulu like this one since From the Heart. Adapting the novella by Mircea Eliade, the American auteur must have identified with the film’s elderly hero, Dominic, who has seen his ambitions come to naught and decides to do himself in before the providential bolt from the blue intervenes. It’s only 1938, and by the time we get to Apollo 11, Coppola has exhausted his narrative invention and some viewers’ patience. But I admire a guy who keeps reaching for the stars, even when he lands on his ass. 125 minutes | Boston Common + Fenway + Kendall Square + Circle/Chestnut Hill + suburbs
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- That intoxicating smell, the siren-call sizzle — looks like pop culture has gone hog wild
- Never mind its tough-girl alt-porn feminism: SuicideGirls has already moved on to a new generation
- We already know about politicians’ capacity for coarse behavior. But how low can the press go?
- Body modification as art at the Peabody Essex Museum
- That intoxicating smell, the siren-call sizzle — looks like pop culture has gone hog wild
- Is there one political story the press shouldn’t report?
- Dutoit and Elder at the BSO, Collage’s Berio, Boston Conservatory’s Turn of the Screw, and Kurt Weill at the Gardner and the MFA
- Body modification as art at the Peabody Essex Museum
- The right of a performance artist represents the rights of all Americans. Plus, an opportunity with Cuba.
- We already know about politicians’ capacity for coarse behavior. But how low can the press go?
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Unintentional laughs
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Too many weird gimmicks
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And Blood will out at the Oscars
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Tears without embellishment
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Diary of the Dead records it for the Web
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George Romero’s exquisite corpses
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Love, loniliness, aging, and bad hair
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Interview: Cristian Mungiu takes his time with 4 Months
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4 Months refuses to come to terms
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Russell Banks dips into the mainstream in The Reserve
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- Unintentional laughs
- A step ahead of the rest
- Too many weird gimmicks
- Religious groups and the environment
- A rich kid on the road to comeuppance
- A shambling charmer
- Revisit one of the great films about the artistic process
- Seraphim in France
- Poignant enough
- An 88-minute flop
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