Category: Film Reviews

A well-done story of conjoined twins and their eventual separation. The death of one. The hooker who cares. Most of the acting is good, although the dialogue becomes quite stilted in parts.

Another children’s story based on the book, but oh so much more interesting and better done. Rather painful sometimes, but the happy ending is worth the wait (although I am not a fan at all of Rosie O’Donnell and don’t like her work here either). Unfortunately, there are parts of the book that are ‘implied’…

A wonderful neo-realist film from Majid Majidi, the Iranian who also did “The Color of Paradise”. This is a superb and sad film about a young man, Lateef, and the construction site he works on. Afghan refugees are used and abused as cheap and illegal workers at the site. When one is injured, his daughter…

Another con/heist flick with Cooney and the gang, including Julia (well, not intentionally at first). It’s ok until it just becomes too cute about her looking like Julia Roberts. Fun in parts and worth watching just to see the gang work together again, including Reiner, Pitt, Roberts, along with Catherine Zeta Jones, but nowhere near…

A wonderful set of character studies that makes the alternative very normal and

Another film from Alejandro In~a’ritu (it really doesn’t look like that), writer/director of “21 Grams” and “Amores Perros”. Uxbal (Antonio Banderas), is a man living on the edges of criminality and the trade in illegal workers. He’s the connection for African and Chinese laborers-exploiters in Barcelona. He cares as a single parent for his two…

A young French priest is sent, first to Quebec City (village) and then inland to a mission to the Hurons. His journey with his Algonquin paddlers and guides, his travail, and his faith all run up against the cruelty of the cultures he visits, their mutual hatred, their openness to sexuality, and his own obstinate…

Another interesting film from Mike Leigh although I have my criticisms. This one looks at the sad and emotionally distanced life of a group of English working-class families. Indeed, my big criticism is that it is so bleak that it’s impossible to imagine people living through this without blowing their brains out. The women are…

After a horrible week that included two police killings of unarmed African-American men and the horrific assassination of five Dallas police, we were not in the mood for a heavy and painful film. Rather, we consciously chose a pleasant trifle of a fairy tale, a sweet and kind story of a group of Brit retirees…

Another kid’s flick from Nick. Not the best, but interesting about urban development. Silly in the extreme, but so what?.

A superb John Sayles film about a small-town Texas sheriff searching for the truth about his father, himself, and his past. Great acting all around, wonderful writing, many plot twists. I thought it the best movie I saw that year, and indeed, in many years. One or two clunky little bits of excessive sincerity, but…

After Friday night’s talk-fest (“Before Sunset”) this is a comic-drama of silences and attitudes. Jim Jarmusch’s classic breakout film must have cost a few thousand to make but it stunned the film world in 1984. Willie (saxophonist for the Lounge Lizards John Lurie), a marginal gambling hipster in NY (and definitely not a part of…

Another painful Russell Banks look at the dark side of small-town New England/NY life. This time with Paul Schrader directing, sometimes over-directing. They sculpt an anguished look at a small town sheriff/road worker with a toothache (Nick Nolte) who is slowly falling apart as his mom dies. His daughter rejects him for her divorced mom…

A tough one to review because the presentation is quite ambiguous. Freddie Quell (Juaqine Phoenix) is an alcoholic, sailor/navy vet, suffering from war and booze induced trauma returning from WWII who can’t keep a job and is wandering aimlessly when he stumbles onto a yacht hosting Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a self-proclaimed prophet a…

Alfred Hitchcok’s classic Cold War tale of a NY ad-man, twice-divorced,. hard drinking, still tightly connected to his mother, caught up in a deadly spy game featuring American and foreign agents. Some marvelous tight comic and tense dialogue and plot twists. Featuring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, Martin Landau, Leo G Carroll, Mt…

Another positive review?. Gee, I don’t know if I can stand being so predictable. Both Bronwen and I really liked this rock and roll fantasy staring Jack Black. He’s the failed rocker who fakes his way into a gig in a private school to pay some debts. There he discovers that his class is full…

A very disappointing film for several reasons. One, directed by and starring Robert Redford, this 2013 offering deals with a subject I care and know about, the radical antiwar movement of the 1960s and ‘70s and Weather in particular. It posits RR (73 or 74 when the film was made) as a former Weatherman gone…

All warfare carries with it the moral dilemma of civilian death, now politely termed collateral damage. Drone warfare examined in this film brings with it exceptional elements. In this film, we see some of those complexities and moral difficulties as British, Kenyan, and American team members stalk Al-Shabab militants in Kenya for capture on the…

Another year another film from Mike Leigh. This one chronicles a very happy, centered couple (Tom and Gerri-Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen) over the course of a year as they work, garden together (B loved that),. and interact with family and friends who aren’t anywhere near as together or happy In particular, it follows Mary…

A very funny, insightful, touching piece of science fantasy from a Russian/French company about a window that lets people go between. St Petersburg and Paris. Self-critical in a sly way. See this one. Subtitled

Also known as “Cria Cuervos” or “Raising Crows”. This moody,. 1974, transhistorical drama by A Suares stars Geraldine Chaplin and a set of fine actors. Looks at a young Spanish girl’s trauma around her mother’s (Chaplin) death in the 1950s from a long disease and the philandering and emotional distance of her husband. Shortly thereafter…

Anthony Weiner’s fall from lion of the liberal political establishment to punchline is chronicled in this painful look at his disastrous 2013 run for mayor of New York. Sexting scandals that reflect personal need for adulation , connection and intimacy with women, [psycho-historians will have a field day with this] lead to his resignation from…

A very funny, very well acted Woody Allen piece with a stellar job by Mira Sorvino (Oscar winning) as the hooker birth-mother of his adopted son. See this one

An accurate, overblown and over the top historical film about the Dreyfus Affair with Oliver Reed and Richard Dryfus. Very melodramatic in style. I did not like this one. Directed by Dryfus

A very good concept film with a weak ending. Sweet little Renee Zellwenger (in her first good role in ages) sees her nasty husband executed in a gangster-like hit/scalping and flips out. She imagines she is in the world of a TV soap opera and is leaving hubby for her ex-fiance, an MD on the…