For the most part, hard luck familial dramas have the potential for being notoriously manipulative on an emotional scale. However, when done remarkably well — with the right precision of pathos and truth — such melodramas can resonate and overcome their soapy constraints. Director/co-writer Jake Scott (“Welcome to the Rileys”) oversees such a one with…
An older major league baseball player becoming a spy for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during World War II to foil an atomic bomb plot has enough palpable atmosphere to be a compelling and pulpy noir. What is even more intriguing, is that it actually occurred. Based off the 1994 biography written by Nicholas…
Searching for the sublime, we are all explorers in our own way, seeking relief from “tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeping in this petty pace from day to day.” The quest for such a magical land is what drove British military officer, archaeologist, and explorer Percy Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam, “Crimson Peak”) to search the Amazon…
The signs for Live by Night are promising. Ben Affleck’s previous directorial offerings — “Gone Baby Gone,” “The Town,” “Argo” — showed ever increasing confidence and skill. The period gangster sub-genre has delivered such classics as “The Godfather,” “The Godfather: Part II” and “Once Upon a Time in America.” The source material, Dennis Lehane’s epic,…
Jean-Paul Sartre famously wrote that hell is other people. Ben Wheatley and Amy Jump’s adaptation of J. G. Ballard’s 1975 novel takes this premise to its (il)logical conclusion, as, in an ironic twist on the title, High-Rise depicts a steady descent into class war-induced delirium, as social and financial divisions steadily turn the eponymous building…
Life is all about taking risks. The decisions we make, no matter how big or how small they may seem, determines different outcomes we can’t always predict. Some of those moments will cause us to jump for joy in victory, while other moments will bring us to our knees in defeat. It shouldn’t surprise us…
Looks can be deceiving. Whatever has your attention is usually caused by a sexy surface that absorbs your mind, body, and soul. For some viewers, that sexy surface is the charismatic presence of a blue-eyed, slick-haired Hollywood leading man. For me, it was the characteristics of what seemed to be a really good movie and…
