“Of all the errands life seems to be running, of all the mysteries that enchant us, love is my favorite” — Diane Ackerman When we think of radicals and revolutionary figures of the sixties, names like Ché Guevara or Stokely Carmichael might come up, but probably the last person we would think of would be…
Each time that screenwriter Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman team up, they create a singular female character that walks onscreen feeling fully formed and armed with lots to say. First it was Ellen Page’s precocious pregnant teen in “Juno,” then it was Charlize Theron’s perpetually perturbed author Mavis Gary in “Young Adult,” and now…
Thoroughbreds has completely reinvented the concept of a haunted mansion, having mercifully put the former out to pasture and out of its misery. This particular mansion is home to Lily, a polished upper-class teenager with a fancy boarding school on her transcript, a coveted internship on her resume, and a penchant for short shorts and…
It should surprise no one: Daniel Day-Lewis shines in Paul Thomas Anderson’s bold and elemental romantic drama, Phantom Thread. The 60-year-old, who’s pledged to leave the silver screen, provides a well-sewn performance in this sendoff. And Anderson, an auteur by nearly any standard, dazzles again with masterful scenery, elegant costumes and a deeper look into…
Allen Packwood, director of the Churchill Archives Centre referred to former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill as an “incredibly complex, contradictory, and larger-than-life human being.” This complexity is lost, however, in Joe Wright’s (“Pan”) Darkest Hour, a look at a crucial time in British Prime Minister Churchill’s stewardship that covers the period from May 10,…
Based “mostly” on a true story (in other words, fictional), Stephen Frears’ (“Florence Foster Jenkins”) Victoria and Abdul is an ode to the warmth of simple friendship and the wonders of British colonialism. Based on the book by Shrabani Basu with a screenplay by Lee Hall (“War Horse”), it is an engaging film about the…
Filmmaker Sofia Coppola is a mixed bag in terms of her big screen artistry as both an actress and movie-making siren. Specifically, Coppola’s auteur skills can run rather cold and dismissive (penning the flat and forgettable costume saga “Marie Antoinette”) or can inspire unexpected hypnotic greatness of roguish contemplation and isolation (as demonstrated in her…
