In the old days, biblical epics were produced as much to have an excuse for prurient excess as for the moral lesson to be imparted by the retelling of a familiar tale of good and evil. Darren Aronofsky’s NOAH is about as far from that trope as it is possible to get and still be… Read More »
HEAVEN IS FOR REAL
HEAVEN IS FOR REAL, based on the bestseller of the same name, means well as it attempts for wrest something theologically profound out of its subject matter. Kudos for the try, but the film as a whole is so painfully cardboard and cliché, that those little nuggets of genuinely existential crisis dont stand a chance… Read More »
ANTWONE FISHER
Denzel Washington may just win himself another Oscar nomination this year, though this time out it will be for directing ANTWONE FISHER, one of the most moving films of this or any other year. Not that his performance is anything but sterling, but the nuanced performance he coaxes from Derek Luke, who plays Fisher is… Read More »
GANGS OF NEW YORK
Martin Scorseses much anticipated, long delayed GANGS OF NEW YORK has finally arrived, and an ambitious, magnificent mess it is. Scorseses visual style, his love for detail as a rich setting for his story, is not to be faulted, but the story itself is a sprawling thing that doesnt so much advance during its 168-minute… Read More »
GET ON UP
James Brown was no ordinary star, and GET ON UP, the film about him is no ordinary bio-pic. It is as kinetic and as kaleidoscopic as the radical new approach to music Brown introduced. Chadwick Boseman, star of 42, essays another real-life character and with the same intensity and passion that be brought to Jackie… Read More »
SONGCATCHER
Ah summertime, barbecues, sunburns and big budget films designed to take you to galaxies far, far away or other equally unlikely locations. When the focus is on special effects, sometimes there just isnt time to worry about a script. Fortunately, for those of us who enjoy popcorn flicks but also long for something more substantial,… Read More »
THE PIANIST
Truth can be and often is stranger than fiction and so it is with the true story of pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman, a Polish Jew who through chutzpah and luck managed to escape the clutches of the uber-efficient Nazi death machine. His experiences have been rendered with a melancholy poetry by Roman Polanski, who as a… Read More »
WE WERE SOLDIERS
General Harold Moore, a scholar and soldier, wears his devotion to the military on his sleeve. There is no sloppy sentimentality about it, nor is there a cynicism that someone who has spent his life under fire might harbor. Instead there is a quiet pride in the institution, his men, and their heroism that only… Read More »
NICHOLAS NICKELBY
NICHOLAS NICKELBY is a perfect entertainment. Its got comedy, drama, romance and a moral. Enacted by a sterling cast from a literate script, it captures the spirit of Dickens without a misstep in its 108 minute running time. The eponymous hero of the piece is the noble but impoverished Nicholas. He is left an orphan… Read More »
NARC
NARC begins intensely with a narc’s-eye view of a bust gone bad. Everything happens too quickly and there is no time to focus on any one event, from the killing of a bystander to the killing of the perp as he attempts to take a toddler hostage, to the shooting of the toddler’s pregnant mother.… Read More »
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