Ron Wilkinson A thoroughly entertaining movie that probes our most painful history and provides a scalpel of a plot. Director Christian Petzold re-unites with leads Nina Hoss and Ronald Zehrfeld in this multiple award winning mystery neo-noir. The Petzold and Hoss enjoyed multiple awards for their previous efforts in “Wolfsburg,” “Toter Mann,” “Yella” and “Barbara” and this
An almost fatally derivative fight flick is saved by a key performance and some good old on-screen fight hokum. This boxing tale splashes the latest hi-tech boxing sequences in front of the audience in no holds barred graphic violence but the film is saved by one key performance. Twelve year old Oona Lawrence punches through
Some people are show business personalities, others are show business. There are perhaps one percent of today’s film viewing audience that ever heard of Sophie Tucker. That is too bad, because she came from a time when stars were born not out of technical special effects, computerized sound producing and outrageous tabloid headlines but out
A defense of the performing arts blossoms into a larger plea for democracy. Writer/director Chaitanya Tamhane’s debut feature film is more allegory than story. The characters in the movie almost hover above the meanings developed from scene to scene. On the surface it is a film about a performing artist who is arrested for causing
Extracts from the Disney attractions are dreadful but personality wins the day in this light duty superhero tale. Director Peyton Reed’s “Ant-Man” benefits from a skillful combination of action, scientific education and personality. Produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney (the twelfth of the Marvel series) it is a sci-fi action film that
A charming but fatally slow exposition of yet another real Sherlock Holmes. An ageing Sherlock Holmes (Ian McKellen) is still solving cases in spite of galloping senility gaining on his senses by leaps and bounds. Apparently even fictional heroes are subject to time and tides, as the magnificent background of the white cliffs of Dover
An amazing look at the new world of methamphetamine manufacture and distribution and the losing battle locals are fighting against it. Film maker Matthew Heineman obtains unmatched access to the Mexican drug business and executes a heart rending story of the fight locals are waging against the megalithic force of drug cartels. The film starts
Arnie is back with his tongue in his cheek and a toolbox of special effects. Ignore the time travel science-babble and concentrate on the feeling of a nuclear holocaust that seethes into your theatre and plants flying buses in your lap. 3-D IMAX is the only way to see the latest in the Terminator franchise,
Steps out on the edge with a fearless exploration of life told with exceptional creativity. A refreshing and remarkable accomplishment. Director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon won big at Sundance this year with both Audience Award and Grand Jury Prize and took home the Best Director award at the Seattle Film Festival with this funny, touching and unabashedly
Some films take hundreds of hours of tedious work and countless exhausted nights of ulcerous brooding. Some simply make themselves. “The Wolfpack” was shot mostly on New York’s Lower East Side by home video masters the Angulo brothers. Locked up in their apartment for over a decade, held captive by a paranoid father and co-dependent