The compassionate god of love so evident in the Sermon on the Mount is nowhere to be found in the documentary JESUS CAMP. It’s a frank, troubling, and cautionary examination of how fundamentalist Christianity closes the minds of its children while indoctrinating them in a belief system of intolerance, bigotry, and hate, all in the name… Read More »
THE DEPARTED
With THE DEPARTED, Martin Scorsese has taken a good film, the Hong Kong minor classic INFERNAL AFFAIRS, and remade it into a movie that is as bloated as it is bland. Gone is the dramatic tension of a slick action flick, gone is the suspenseful psychological subtext that pondered the nature of identity, subsumed into… Read More »
THE PRESTIGE
The first words heard in Christopher Nolan’s THE PRESTIGE come in a voice-over as the camera pans across an odd collection of silk top hats in disarray across a wintry landscape. It admonishes the audience to pay close attention to everything and that is excellent advice, but perhaps futile. David Attenborough, intrepid documenter of the… Read More »
UNITED 93 — DVD
In the course of the commentary track by writer/director Paul Greenglass, he answers those who thought that it was too soon to make a film about UNITED 93. It’s not too soon, he says, it’s high time. As with the feature film release of UNITED 93, the DVD is also a tribute to the people who… Read More »
THE SCHOOL FOR SCOUNDRELS
Based on the 1960 film THE SCHOOL FOR SCOUNDRESL OF HOW TO WIN WITHOUT ACTUALLY CHEATING!, which was, in turn, very loosely based on the 18th century play by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, THE SCHOOL FOR SCOUNDRELS never deviates for a moment from the textbook arc for tales such as these. Loser at life, love, and… Read More »
MARIE ANTOINETTE
The first image in Sofia Coppola’s latest film is of title character, MARIE ANTOINETTE, having a slipper put on her dainty foot by a servant as she dips her finger into the neon-pink icing of a multi-layer cake. She licks her finger, and then turns to look directly into the camera with a wink and… Read More »
CATCH A FIRE
CATCH A FIRE is a timely consideration of what drives human beings to extremes. Based on a true story of South Africa’s time under apartheid, it shows one man radicalized from passivity to activism to armed resistance with the same dizzy speed that his illusion of security is shattered. The time is 1980 and the… 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 »
AMERICAN DREAMZ — DVD
Click here to listen to the interview with Paul Weitz (8:04)Click here to listen to the interview with Paul and Chris Weitz for ABOUT A BOY (20:36)AMERICAN DREAMZ did not perform as well as it should have when it was released. Perhaps it cut too close to the bone as it turned reality television inside… Read More »
A GOOD YEAR
In films such as A GOOD YEAR, there is never any doubt about how things will end. There’s precious little doubt about the plot arc that will lead to that ending. In fact, the only reason to see a film such as A GOOD YEAR is the charm of the main character to whom all… Read More »
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- …
- 11
- Next Page »