Movie Reviews
(This review originally appeared at Reel Film News on September 21, 2012.) Liberal Arts shows us that our youth (and youthfulness) is slipping fast through our grasping fingers, no matter how hard a grip we may exert. Time and its pressures are a constant wear on the psyche and the soul, and yet we brace […]
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(This review originally appeared at Reel Film News on September 21, 2012.) Every one of us is trying to carve out a little bit of love for ourselves in this world. It doesn’t matter who or what you are; we all want to share a lasting connection with someone else. How we get there, though, […]
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(This review was originally published on September 21, 2012 at Reel Film News) I had a strong visceral reaction – well, several actually – to “End of Watch”, which culminated in something of a love/hate feeling for me, stemming perhaps from my inability to get a grip on the film’s direction for more than two […]
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(This review originally appeared at Reel Film News on September 7, 2012.) Writing about a documentary where the documentarian loses objectivity due to learning deep truths about himself is difficult. How do you pass judgment on one’s own learning experience that almost negates the proposed experiment? Kumaré is the story about a man who seeks […]
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(This review was originally published on September 7, 2012 at Reel Film News) I felt I had to weigh in on “Compliance”, which poses as an examination of human behavior in order to feed us more of the exploitative garbage that I was hoping would eventually fade from contemporary cinema. I know, what a ridiculous […]
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(This review originally appeared at Reel Film News on August 31, 2012.) Anthology films can be a lot of fun. 1982’s Creepshow, directed by George A. Romero (of Night of the Living Dead fame) and written by Stephen King, took us through as many as five stories of the macabre and terrifying – depending on […]
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(This review originally appeared at Reel Film News on August 17, 2012.) I feel like I’ve finally internalized one of the differences between European cinema and American cinema after being exposed to more of the former. American cinema chooses to focus on the surface aspects of their subjects, often going for “eye-catching” over depth. European […]
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(This review was originally published on August 17, 2012 at Reel Film News) He’s sitting in a café, absorbing the activity around him. He listens to a young woman reading a list of dreams and aspirations to her friend at a nearby table; a group of girls joke about suicide; a man and woman small-talk […]
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(This review was originally published on August 15, 2012 at Reel Film News) Writer/director Peter Hedges’ family fantasy/drama “The Odd Life of Timothy Green” is enjoyable enough, but often feels like it’s dying to be a more serious movie. The story revolves around Jim and Cindy Green (Joel Edgerton and Jennifer Garner), a couple who […]
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