French Canadian director Denis Villeneuve caught my undivided attention with his thriller “Prisoners” (2013), portraying one of the darkest kidnapping scenarios in recent memory. Villeneuve explores even darker subject matter in his latest suspense thriller “Sicario” (meaning hitman in Mexico), that will make pudding out of any 2015 horror film. Its closest companion would […]
Fall Movie Season is here! Finally after all those endlessly lackluster summer movies, so loud and filled with mind-wasting special effects, it’s once again, time for the good stuff.
The End of the Tour: What an extremely well crafted film! Usually, I’m disinclined toward movies that are primarily of two people having a conversation, but this is a notable exception where David Foster Wallace (Segal), a celebrated novelist (Infinite Jest), is continually spilling out pearls of wisdom when he is being interviewed for five
Until now I had never found the cinematic creations of Sherlock Holmes very interesting. Robert Downey Jr’s modern, action packed, version of the fictional detective is the most recent mainstream version seen on the big screen. However, Academy Award winner Bill Condon (Gods & Monsters, Kinsey) directs the most human version of the character I
The moment Love & Mercy goes from a moderately interesting film occurs gently. Here I thought the musical biopic had sung its last note, then producer turned director Bill Pohlad offers up something systematically different by way of the editing room and perfect casting. The real strong point of Love & Mercy is the trio
I doubt audiences will be lining up to see a film about a widowed 70 year old, pondering life’s cruel reasons for her loneliness. It’s their loss if they don’t, I’ll See You In My Dreams is not only charming and delightful, it’s the three dimension lead role Blythe Danner (Meet the Parents) has been
Wild Tales is a remarkable film from Argentina showing in six vignettes a range of human emotions and coping techniques in response to stress. In all the tales, emotional press (animal instincts, perhaps, in that beautiful close-ups of animals in the wild are shown during the initial credits) usurps logic and good old problem solving
cThe 2014 Oscar race was in need of a frontrunner for best actress, and following the first screening of Still Alice at the Toronto Film Festival, they found it in long overdue Academy Award nominee Julianne Moore (The Hours, Far From Heaven). Originally it seemed Moore’s supporting performance in Map of the Stars would land
Fresh off of his Oscar nomination for Before Midnight, Texas’s favorite auteur, Richard Linklater (Bernie), has delivered perhaps his most genius work to date. On the red carpet, actor Ethan Hawke talked about how excited he was for people to finally see Boyhood after having to keep it a secret for over 12 years. The
The Coen Brothers are excellent story tellers and inventors of characters, whether or not you like the film as a whole. Inside Llewyn Davis would fit into that good but not great category. The most impressive elements here are Oscar Isaac’s magnificent voice and “prickly” character performance and the unusually unique minor characters the Coen’s