THE HUNGER GAMES may be based on a wildly popular young adult series of novels, but the film adaptations have always tackled issues that are powerfully adult and presented as such. Set in an unspecified future, the class system has run so wild that the life and death of the proletariat class has become institutionalized… Read More »
SPOTLIGHT
SPOTLIGHT does more than dissect the passions at work in the investigative news process. As riveting as the specifics are of how The Boston Globe’s special investigative team chased down the sex-abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, it’s the larger question, that of how wide-spread sexual abuse of children by priests could have flourished for… Read More »
A LITTLE CHAOS — A Little Too Little
A LITTLE CHAOS, not to be too precious about it, could have used a little more actual chaos. This handsomely executed historical drama is by turns ponderous and interesting, but interesting in a removed, unengaged fashion that renders the whole far less than the sum of its parts. Directed by co-star and co-writer Alan Rickman,… Read More »
THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY — PART 1
THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY — PART 1 is not unlike its iconic heroine, Katniss Everdeen. It’s bold, headstrong, no-nonsense, and impatient to get on with things. It begins almost directly from whence the last installment of the saga left off, and with little if any exposition about anything that happened before. For example, why those… Read More »
JULIE & JULIA
If Julia Child had not chosen the right moment to powder her nose at an embassy party in Paris, she might never have met Simone Beck, and there might never have been the classic cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. If Julie Powell, at the end of a particularly trying day as a government… Read More »
BIG TROUBLE
BIG TROUBLE, you might recall, was pulled from its original fall 2001 release because of the incidents of 9/11. The film’s finale features a plane hijacking and a really big bomb. Releasing it then would have been so far beyond wrong that a whole new circle would have had to be added to Hell order… Read More »
BURLESQUE
BURLESQUE is a heaping helping of corn pone laced with a glittering cascade of glitzy production numbers. Start with a fresh-faced Iowa farm girl, Ali (Christina Aguilera), take her to the bright lights and broken dreams of Hollywood, and in the time it takes to show the montage of her hitting the streets in search… Read More »
TRANSFORMERS — AGE OF EXTINCTION
Perhaps Michael Bay was worried that this might be the last Transformers movie ever, hence the extinction in the title, and, further hence, being the reason that he packed the running time with even more than usual of his trademark pyrotechnics, hyperbolic action sequences, and the wanton destruction of a noodle shop. Then again, Mr,… Read More »
THE CORE
Somewhere in THE CORE there is a neat-o flick trying to get out. Unfortunately, its stymied by cliché characters and a series of hackneyed action-adventure plot points that all but kill any joy we might have found in the otherwise fun concept and occasional burst of crisp dialogue. The premise is that the Earths outer core,… Read More »
TERMINAL, THE
THE TERMINAL is another cloying schmaltz-fest from Tom Hanks aided and abetted by Steven Spielberg. The premise is based on the true story of a man without a country stuck at a Paris airport for years on end living by his wits and the kindness of strangers. So much to work with, including the kind… Read More »