JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 2 starts with Mr. Wick doing what he does best. That would be mowing his way through a horde of adversaries with a cool precision and a lethal effect. While he is doing this, we are reminded, or introduced to, if we haven’t see the first film, just who exactly Mr. Wick… Read More »
SULLY
As lean and laconic as its director, Clint Eastwood’s SULLY is a gripping but (mostly) unsentimental retelling of how Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger safely landed his stricken American Airlines plane in the Hudson River after suffering a bird strike on January 15, 2009. To the public, and the lives of the passengers he saved, he was… Read More »
GHOSTBUSTERS
There are many, many things to love about the GHOSTBUSTERS reboot, and one of them is that it is equally good whether you are a fan of the 1984 version, or if you’ve never heard of it. Director and co-writer (with Katie Dippold) Paul Feig, the man who brought us THE HEAT (co-written with him… Read More »
Lee Daniels on PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL PUSH BY SAPPHIRE
Lee Daniels talks about how he was able to bring his film, PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL PUSH BY SAPPHIRE, to the screen without compromising his vision. From taking eight years to convince the author to let him transfer the story of Precious to the screen, to casting newcomer Gabourey Sibide in the title role,… Read More »
STONEWALL
STONEWALL is a sudsy, underwritten, overwrought effort that is less than the intended tribute to the unsung heroes of the eponymous riots that accelerated the gay liberation movement into the social mainstream. Instead, it is a melodrama of truly epic proportions told with every cliché of gay life as lived in less enlightened times, and with… Read More »
Stephen Winter Re-discovers JASON AND SHIRLEY
Click here to listen to the interview. When Shirley Clarke made PORTRAIT OF JASON, she was doing more than exercising her creative impulse. The Oscar™-winning director had been all but shut out of Hollywood, and returned to New York to pursue a career as an indie filmmaker rather than deal with being marginalized by the… Read More »
Noah Baumbach Makes Hay WHILE WE’RE YOUNG
Noah Baumbach took a bold step in writing and directing WHILE WE’RE YOUNG. He decided not to take sides when telling this tale of youthful impatience and adult complacence meeting head-on, instead opting for the far more interesting neutral perspective that allows the audience to relish the quirks of both generations while never stooping to… Read More »
5 TO 7 with Victor Levin
When I spoke with Victor Levin by phone on April 3, 2015, I was surprised to learn that one of the thing that I appreciated most about his feature film directorial debut, the practicality of the women of the piece about extra-marital affairs in contrast to the shock evidenced by the men, was not something… Read More »
RUN ALL NIGHT with Liam Neeson
There is a reason that there is a rigid formula for Liam Neeson action films: it has a tendency to hit more than it misses. In RUN ALL NIGHT, the tropes are all present and accounted for with the variations that are permitted within the formula’s rules. Neeson is the everyman with, you will pardon… 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 »