Mallory Kane doesn’t care about your feelings. Played by Gina Carano, she is a black ops super soldier (whatever that is, neither director Steven Soderbergh nor I really care) privately contracted by Kenneth (Ewan McGregor) with whom she shares a fraught, but vague, personal history. She is delegated to free Read More…
He’s a proclaimed atheist, pop culture enthusiast and voice actor dabble-ist (from “The Fairly OddParents” to the lead role of Remy in “Ratatouille”). He’s known for his role as Star Trek-nerd, Spence in “The King of Queens” and most significantly known for his flourishing stand-up career. Ladies and gentlemen, this Read More…
10. “Jane Eyre” A girl stumbles across the wild and stormy moors, gasping for breath. This is pretty much a requisite scene in all adaptations of “Jane Eyre,” but rarely are we thrown into it in the first few minutes of film, as in this latest interpretation from Cary Fukunaga. Read More…
Upon his return to filmmaking almost five years ago, Francis Ford Coppola offered his take on the difference between a young artist looking for success and an aging artist attempting to regain prominence: “I’ve been thinking about what seems to be a repeating pattern, artists who distinguish themselves when they Read More…
Northern California during the 1970s served as a bastion of cinema with such enduring filmmakers as Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas and Philip Kaufman basing their projects in the San Francisco Bay Area. Seen as a practical alternative to the established hierarchy of Los Angeles, Northern California attracted a multitude Read More…
The fourth installment of the paranormal, pasty teen melodrama known as “The Twilight Saga” begins with a thought. The headstrong ingenue and perpetual target of bestial man lust, Bella Swan, contemplates the meaning of maturation, the transformation from adolescence to adulthood all the while striving for poignancy of the highest Read More…
A specter haunts the African continent in “White Material,” Claire Denis’ savage rumination on the clash between developing societies and their bourgeoisie occupants. In the vein of Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness,” the film probes the convoluted legacy of European colonial heritage with remarkable panache. A radical departure from the Read More…
Alexander Payne, where’ve you been? How the hell are ya? Come here, and gimme a hug. Seven years after the release of his film “Sideways,” one of the most acerbic and piercing entries in our century’s dime-a-dozen crop of indie dramedies, the sorely missed writer/director has returned, and now he’s Read More…
There is something about the American South, with its decaying social mores and weary livers, that we are inexplicably drawn to, like that dark and drawling stranger in the back of the bar, hidden by smoke. Perhaps it’s because we, too, have fallen on hard times, settled for banality and Read More…
A few times during the screening of “Immortals,” the audience would emit a collective awkward laugh, and not in response to a joke made by the stoic Henry Cavill, who plays the lead hero Theseus. Rather, certain attempts at melodrama would brush the surface of comedy, as when Freida Pinto’s virgin Read More…
