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 »
THE GURU
THE GURU is a fluffy confection that mixes the exuberance of Bollywood with measured lunacy of 30s screwball comedies and adds just a dash of The Joy of Sex to leaven the mixture with a millennial sensibility. Our hero is Ramu, an Indian dance teacher who was marked as a child by seeing John Travolta… Read More »
ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO
ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO, the latest installment of Robert Rodriguez’s EL MARIACHI series. begins with a bang and barely pauses to catch its breath until its suitably bloody denouement. Antonio Banderas returns as the fastest guitar in Mexico, and I don’t just mean the way he pounds out chords on his stringed instrument… Read More »
NORTH COUNTRY
I don’t know that NORTH COUNTRY can even be said to have its heart in the right place. I’m not even sure that it has a heart. In recounting the events leading up to a sexual harassment class-action suit brought by a suitably plucky female miner in Minnesota, it cheapens the story “inspired” by actual… Read More »
PRIME
It is a testament to Meryl Streep’s stellar acting skills that she had kept her role in PRIME from devolving into a shrill caricature of a Jewish mother. And this is especially important given that hers is the only fully realized character to be found in this otherwise dreary excuse for a romantic comedy. The… Read More »
KINKY BOOTS
Some are born great, some become great, and others have greatness thrust upon them. In that last category is Charlie Price (wide-eyed innocent Joel Edgerton), the 4th generation heir-apparent to his family’s footwear factory and hero of KINKY BOOTS. His is not the greatness of leading a nation, or conquering evil, but rather that of… Read More »
FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS
FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS, based on the book of the same name by James Bradley and Ron Powers, begins with the line “Every jackass thinks he knows what war is, especially those who have never been in one.” That may or may not be a swipe at the current administration, but it is definitely the… Read More »
BALLS OF FURY
Christopher Walken’s essential star quality, his absolute uniqueness as a performer, is never more apparent, or welcome, than when he appears in dreck. Even in the worst films, ENVY comes to mind, he is there, effortlessly finding something, anything, in a bad script and worse directing, to which a hapless audience can cling until the… Read More »
THE KINGDOM
THE KINGDOM wants to be SYRIANA by way of BLACK HAWK DOWN, but by earnestly following those templates, it renders itself an unsatisfying pastiche that has neither conviction nor surprise, much less the pervasive sense of uncertainty for which it so desperately strives. Instead, it comes across as schmaltzy, predictable, and insidiously imperialistic. It’s the… Read More »
STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE
What Errol Morris is doing with STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE is more than a mere and mundane retelling of the abuses committed by American military personnel at Abu Ghraib. There is certainly that, but Morris, whose non-fiction features are as quirky as they are perceptive, goes beyond uncovering the whats and whens. He addresses the far… Read More »