Ron Wilkinson Starting off as a great military/industrial complex send-up, the story flounders in the home stretch when it grasps at the serious and ends up in slapstick. Talya Larvie’s military dramedy is fresh, untamed and funny. This is amazing, considering it shreds one of the top military organizations in the world. Featuring the women of mandatory
A rich slice of hardship and redemption from the unforgiving frontier. The opening scenes are as bleak as death itself. Parched plains, patched together clapboard houses, poverty so deep it rises up to greet you at the front door, and wind that never, ever, lets up. Tommy Lee Jones’ second feature film shows an America
A tight knit and brutally honest essay on familial conflicts and the complications of living a Western dream in an environment of limited possibilities. Nine year old Junior is on the war path with his mother. What else is new? The ageless story of kid versus parent is told again, this time in the tough
A lean and mean essay on human bondage, a minimalist examination of living life to the least. Peter Sattler’s directorial debut is as bare and exposed as a prisoner in a cell. A stripped down film about warehousing human beings and waiting for the next step. The next step for the inmate is release, and
Screenwriting bromedy that shows Bollywood is not that much different than its American counterpart. Dulal is the brains and Mainak is the street smarts in Amit Masurkar’s flighty bromedy screened at the 9th Seattle South Asian Film Festival. Like most screenwriters, these two need that one big break to make it into the big time.
A combination of spectacular special effects, marginal physics and grindingly slow treacle, McConaughey pulls this one out of the fire. Christopher Nolan’s $165 million IMAX space lollapalooza is all the better for starting in the most modest of environments. It is some time in the future, some place in the American Midwest. Things are not
A disturbing love story set in the unforgiving world of the Internet. Writer/director Zachary Wigon’s essay on the vicissitudes of internet love starts innocently enough. A quiet, intimate conversation in the privacy of Cody’s (John Gallagher Jr. – HBO’s “The Newsroom,” and “Short Term 12”) East Village apartment with a possible significant other. The woman
A lot of emotion but not enough screenplay to keep things moving even for the spare 92 minute run time Nicole Kidman gives it her best shot but there is simply not enough going on in Rowan Joffe’s psychological drama to make it work. The lack of plot is aggravated by the bizarre use of
A flighty but spectacular walk on the mean streets of the new media. Having written the screenplay for “The Bourne Legacy” and other hits, Dan Gilroy apparently decided to take the plunge and try his hand at directing. His debut with “Nightcrawler” may be one of the most spectacularly successful first efforts seen for some
A friendly discussion of life and death passes the time as the Allies storm the last Nazi defenses of the City of Lights. After watching Volker Schlöndorff’s (Oscar-winning German director of “The Tin Drum”) touching, scary and occasionally funny rendition of an imaginary meeting that decided the fate of Paris you may never watch “My