Best known for his 2003 international cult classic Old Boy, South Korean director Chan-wook Park has been making waves with his latest The Handmaiden. Crafted specifically for the stereotypical, single, live at home, surrounded by comic book memorabilia fan boy; The Handmaiden titillates more than it entertains. Told in a Quentin Tarantino chapter style, involving […]
Surprise! This is a clever film making a comedy of intelligent protest against ridiculously stringent rules at a middle school, where the principal is more about power than about education. Poor Rafe (Gluck) (as in Rules Aren’t for Everyone) has been accepted into the only school left for him after suspensions from other schools. He
Jocelyn Moorhouse returns to film after almost twenty years away from the director’s chair. The Dressmaker is an odd film in structure, subject matter and presentation. Moorhouse describes the film as “Unforgiven with a sewing machine”. What looks like a film about a young woman returning to her miserable dusty Australian town to find love
The latest Peter Berg / Mark Wahlberg collaboration proves the filmmaking duo have discovered a formula that has a broad mainstream appeal. It started with Lone Survivor, based on a true story, with Wahlberg playing an American war hero. Another extreme circumstance, another heroic situation, this time Wahlberg is saving co-workers during the Deepwater Horizon
I can’t remember a time that I have enjoyed Oscar nominee Eddie Murphy (Dreamgirls) on screen this much. Mr. Church is an unconventional story, not about the family you are born with, but the family you choose (or often the one that chooses you). It’s a bittersweet drama that maintains a bit of mystery and
“You won’t know, until you get there, that you are ok.” That’s the most prolific phrase from a script by James C. Strouse (Grace is Gone) that can be applied to whatever the audience might be dealing with when they watch his new film. Comedian turned serious actor John Krasinski (13 Hours, Away We Go)
Writer/director Greg Kwedar takes a very specific look at border control along the Arizona border. The focal point of Transpecos centers around three US Border Patrol agents who find themselves in manipulated circumstances. Exploring subject matter that has dominated the presidential race, Transpecos covers so many points of view within these three characters. Kwedar’s script
They don’t make them like this anymore. Terrence Davis like Anthony Minghella, Terrence Malik or Martin Scorsese, has a flare for the epic, the bold, the understanding of time and space. Davis’ adaptations are typically period and explore the hardships of a particular era as much as the characters within. This time he sets his
It’s a good time to be a Rachel Weisz fan. Just this week she has not one, but two films opening. It’s been a while since the Oscar winning actress had been the lead of a film, but Ms. Daniel Craig is certainly overdue and talented enough to hold a film together. Joshua Marston is
Venezuelan actor Edgar Ramirez first caught my attending with his commanding performance in “The Liberator” (2013). Since then he has quickly become a Hollywood commodity, starring alongside Jennifer Lawrence and Robert DeNiro in “Joy” last year, action flick “Point Break”, even dabbling in horror with “Deliver Us From Evil”. With his second-high profile leading role