Guillermo del Toro plays with robots and monsters on a large scale By T.T. Stern-Enzi Photo by: The battle for Earth rages on the high seas in “Pacific Rim”; Rating: PG-13 Grade: B- There’s a lot more than meets the eye in Guillermo del Toro’s robot-monster mash-up “Pacific Rim.” We’re told from the start in voiceover […]
New film opens at Neon next weekend By T.T. Stern-Enzi Photo: Pierce Brosnan [far left] and Trine Dyrholm [second from right] look for new beginnings in “Love is All You Need”; Rated: R Grade: B+ Danish director Susanne Bier seems to be incrementally easing off the dramatic gas with each new release. She began attracting attention […]
Lena Dunham steps further outside her already uncomfortable zone By T.T. Stern-Enzi Rarely do I feel the need to follow-up a review or feature as directly as I will this week. The dialogue on race, which began with “Django Unchained” last week, demands further exploration, although with the gaze turned now to the small screen, […]
Musical documentary “Sugar Man” unearths a real treasure By T.T. Stern-Enzi Rating: PG-13 Grade: A In what should be an iconic image, we see Sixto Diaz Rodriguez, a folk singer who recorded his first single “I’ll Slip Away” back in 1967, strolling along with his guitar case strapped across his back. His long, dark hair […]
Serialized vignettes explore couples on the verge of making babies Grade: B The pitch for “Conception,” a slightly skewed romantic comedy from writer-director Josh Stolberg (screenwriter on “Good Luck Chuck” & “Sorority Row”), probably reminded some of the gatekeepers that heard it of would-be mainstream crowd-pleasers like “Valentine’s Day” and “New Year’s Eve,” the broad […]
The festival continues to promote and celebrate film and community By T.T. Stern-Enzi As the Downtown Dayton LGBT community prepares to present its seventh annual film festival – Sept. 28-30 – with screenings at The Neon, I had one overarching question – with an obvious follow-up – for festival director, Jonathan McNeal. I wondered what […]
Your friendly neighborhood critic previews the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival By T.T. Stern-Enzi Filmmakers take viewers on journeys, rendering the fantastic with startling specificity and introducing audiences to characters beyond the scope of their collective experiences and to faraway places they might never consider for the routine (and typically affordable) family excursion. Eager armchair […]
“Where Do We Go Now?” seeks to resolve an eternal conflict By T.T. Stern-Enzi Rating: PG-13 Grade: A- In a remote Lebanese village (hard to believe that such out of the way places actually exist), Christians and Muslims live together, side by side, working and entertaining themselves, as a community that is as close as […]
First-time screenwriter Zoe Kazan writes and leaps off the page and the screen By T.T. Stern-Enzi Rated: R Grade: A- Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (“Little Miss Sunshine”) tag-team with writer and co-star Zoe Kazan to tell the incredible story of Calvin Weir-Fields (Paul Dano), a young author who finds himself struggling to complete the […]
Writer-director of “Dan in Real Life” makes a wish come true By T.T. Stern-Enzi Rating: PG Grade: B+ Film is all about making us believe in the magic, the fantasies we have to leave behind once we come of age and settle into adulthood. To step into a darkened theater though, if only for a […]
Sentimental buddy comedy reveals our common humanity By T.T. Stern-Enzi Rated: R Grade: B+ Inspired by the true story of Abdel Sellou’s memoir “You Changed My Life,” “The Intouchables” dramatizes the unlikely relationship that develops between Driss (Omar Sy), an African immigrant living in the ghettos of Paris, and Philippe (François Cluzet), an aristocratic quadriplegic […]
With “Take This Waltz”, Sarah Polley focuses again on a woman on the verge Rating: R Grade: B By T.T. Stern-Enzi A slow week at area theaters will send you scurrying to all corners for any fleeting sign of life and when you wish for more than just the promise of an escape from the […]
Co-writer & director Benh Zeitlin’s feature debut refuses to tame the beasts By T.T. Stern-Enzi Rating: PG-13 Grade: A “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” the savage visual poem from debut director Benh Zeitlin (which he co-wrote with playwright Lucy Alibar), takes us on an adventure from its opening frame, yet what makes it so special […]
Marc Webb makes an amazing transition from rom-com to wham-bam action By T.T. Stern-Enzi Audiences may not understand why we need another “Spider-Man” movie. Sam Raimi’s trilogy came to a close in 2007, but it should be noted that “Spider-Man 3” felt like its web shooters were empty. I know, I know, Raimi’s films embraced […]
The Kooky Birth of the Vibrator in Victorian England Buzzes Along By T.T Stern-Enzi Rating: R Grade: C+ I’m sure that at some point during last year’s Toronto International Film Festival, some outlet in the world referred to Tanya Wexler’s Hysteria, which humorously probes into the birth of the vibrator, as “a feel good” story, […]
An ominously viral teaser extended over two hours By T.T. Stern-Enzi Rating: R Grade: B The titan Prometheus defied the gods of Olympus, gave fire to mankind, and suffered for his sin, chained to a rock while an eagle devoured his liver, which would grow back only to be dined upon again the next day. […]
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You’ve seen it throughout your social media feed, you hear about a friend’s awesome class over a cup of coffee, […]
Summer is the perfect time to hit the water, and with more than 265 miles of water trails in the […]
The words “living legend” are often misapplied, usually to sports figures who haven’t really experienced enough of life to earn […]
Love them or hate them, the Grateful Dead were truly a one-of-a-kind band. During their thirty-year career as one of […]
Queensrÿche have spent their career defining a uniquely heavy progressive sound. Whether delivering Mindcrime, Empires or taking fans to the […]
