WIN WIN presents Mike Flaherty (Paul Giamatti), a decent man and an honest lawyer beetling through life with financial worries that he meticulously keeps from his adored family. Keeping it in has given him episodes that arent quite heart attacks, but are enough to alarm his best friend, Terry (Bobby Canavale), into calling an ambulance.… Read More »
INSIDIOUS
The most resonant horror films, the ones that stand the test of time, are the ones that speak most directly to some aspect of reality that is magnetically identifiable to the viewer. Such is the case with INSIDIOUS, a smartly conceived film by James Wan and Leigh Whannell, the founders of the SAW franchise. While… Read More »
THE HELP
THE HELP, based on the novel of the same name by Kathryn Stockett, gently but firmly peels away they dry rot of racism that festered beneath the gracious, etiquette obsessed façade of southern gentility before the civil rights movement. What is remarkable, and a remarkably difficult line to walk, is that it does so while… Read More »
WARRIOR
The ultimate test of a films potency comes not when a story with its twists and turns forges new trails into unfamiliar terrain. The ultimate test may very well be if a film can take a familiar tale and make it suspenseful. WARRIOR does just that. The loosely woven story takes on not one, but… Read More »
MONEYBALL
The starring role in MONEYBALL is not a showy one. Rather it requires of the actor playing it to posses a consummate skill in inhabiting a character rather than merely playing one. Billy Beane, the General Manager of the Oakland A’s must be all things to all people, low-key and cool as he is glad-handing… Read More »
A VERY HAROLD & KUMAR 3D CHRISTMAS
With some films, the 3-D effect is tacked on to generate a few extra bucks at the box office. And then there are the ones like A VERY HAROLD AND KUMAR 3-D CHRISTMAS. The wisps of smoke coming off those funny cigarettes so dear to the title characters hearts become prehensile as they float off… Read More »
LOVE! VALOR! COMPASSION
LOVE! VALOR! COMPASSION! is a romantic comedy, full of great one-liners, that, nonetheless is not shy about taking on serious subjects, such as the human heart. Forget space, this is the real final frontier. Nothing else has such an infinite capacity to delight, destroy, and surprise. The story takes place over three holiday weekends during which a… Read More »
DAUGHTER FROM DANANG
Gail Dolgin and Franco Vicente’s heartrending documentary DAUGHTER FROM DANANG shows not only the long-term effects of the Vietnam War in very personal terms, but also looks at how fragile the bonds of blood and family can be. Both insights are disturbing, but in the able hands of these filmmakers, the story of one family’s… Read More »
YOUNG ADULT
The key to YOUNG ADULT’s protagonist, Mavis Gray, is her response to a particular question. Appearing bedraggled and wine-stained on the doorstep of her human doormat, Matt Freehauf, she is asked by him what happened. The audience knows she has been devastated by having her illusions taken from her. Her answer, though, eschews that. Instead,… Read More »
THE GREY
The best moment, the one that perfectly sums up THE GREY, is the one where a character has decided to die. Not because pain and fatigue suffered by that character have muddled his judgment and clouded his mind, though the actor involved certainly brings that, no, the decision to die is more transcendent than that,… Read More »
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