Director Debra Granik Unearths ‘Winter’s Bone’ By T.T. Stern-Enzi Winter’s Bone transports audiences to a stark unexplored territory in terms of contemporary film, far away from the bustling urban centers on either coast or even the stereotypically quaint “dirty” South that never strays too deep into the murk and the muck of our dark history. [...]
This Fancy Feast Satisfies Thanks To Main Ingredient Steve Carell By T.T. Stern-Enzi In the French original, The Dinner Game, there apparently was no dinner. The whole premise was based on the set-up, the train wreck effect of watching idiots come together and the havoc created on the way to the unseen event. Jay Roach, [...]
Film Review An unconventional family grows up. By T.T. Stern-Enzi For a film about family, The Kids Are All Right, Lisa Cholodenko’s new indie drama, twists the dynamics in ways both obvious and subtle to great effect. As a long-together lesbian couple, Nic (Annette Bening) and Jules (Julianne Moore) have achieved a degree of domestic [...]
Indie melds sci-fi horror and family dynamics to great effect Forget cloning; that’s what Splice, the new film from Vincenzo Natali, wants because cloning is so five years ago. The new genetic horizon is gene splicing. What happens when scientists merge various animal DNA strands and create new breeds, which is far more intriguing to [...]
Argentina’s Oscar winner no longer a secret in the U.S. At first glance, Juan Jose Campanella’s Academy Award winner (Best Foreign Language) looks like a television procedural, Law & Order: Buenos Aires. Writer-director Campanella certainly has the background for the procedural elements here. In fact, he has directed episodes of The Guardian and House as [...]
Patrik, Age 1.5 screened at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival and attracted attention for its smart, funny take on gay adoption and homophobia. Goran (Gustaf Skarsgard) and Sven (Torkel Petersson), a Swedish couple, anxiously await the arrival of their 15-month old adoptee, but are shocked to find Patrik (Thomas Ljungman), a 15-year old homophobic [...]
With The Runaways, music video director Floria Sigismondi trains her eye on the early days of punkish girl rockers as Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning) and Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart) hook up with producer impresario Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon) to set the stage for what would become the runaway success of women in the game of [...]
Gritty French prison drama keeps it real Malik (Tahar Rahim), 19 and facing a six-year stint in prison for assaulting police officers and a string of other crimes, is illiterate and without any family or friends on the outside. He has the feral intensity of a kid who has been living by his wits, staying [...]
Marvel sequel scraps the human drama for gearheaded action When it comes to sequels, the sins of the fathers (or the first films) tend to become the sins of the sons (the successive progeny). Nowhere is that more evident than in Jon Favreau’s follow-up to his comic book actioner seeking to introduce the Marvel crossover [...]
High Fructose Corn Syrup By Megan Garrison The FDA recently rejected a bid to officially change the name of high [...]
Walker was Victorious in Wisconsin Because His Reforms Worked By David H. Landon The folks at MSNBC had a bad [...]
It Takes More than a Tweet By Rana Odeh The victory of Republican Governor Scott Walker over Milwaukee Democrat Mayor [...]
What are the Consequences of Recall Election in Wisconsin? Last Tuesday, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) prevailed in an unusual [...]
Obama’s Support of Same Sex Marriage Will Cost Him Swing States By David H. Landon By Election Day, the President’s [...]
President Obama Announces Support of Same-Sex Marriage Most pundits believe that this Presidential election will be decided on the issue [...]
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