Whenever I find myself looking at the treasured imagery of the American Frontier, there’s always a bittersweetness that washes over. Perhaps it is the grandeur of the mountains looming against the most idyllic of cottages, but there’s this sense of melancholy that’s fascinating to explore. One such example comes in the form of Mona Fastvold’s…
Robert Redford (“Our Souls at Night”) is an American icon and, in David Lowery’s (“A Ghost Story”) The Old Man and the Gun, has ostensibly made his final curtain call as an actor. Adapted by Lowery from a 2003 article in the New Yorker about Forrest Tucker by David Grann (“The Lost City of Z”),…
“And we’re lost out here in the stars. Little stars, big stars, blowing through the night” — Kurt Weill Though the consensus of mainstream science is that ghosts do not exist, people’s shared experiences throughout history tell us that disembodied spirits do wander the earth, unfortunate souls who are unable to let go of their…
Dealing with the aftermath of a tragedy turns a once warm and ebullient family man into a solemn, withdrawn, and angry loner in Kenneth Lonergan’s (“Margaret”) bittersweet drama Manchester by the Sea, one of the best films of 2016. Set in the picturesque city of Manchester on Massachusetts’ north shore, cinematographer Jody Lee Lipes (“Martha…
When I was growing up, reading science fiction from such authors as Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, and Arthur C. Clarke meant discovering new worlds of imagination and wonder. Sadly, what passes for science fiction today is mostly a reflection of a world imprisoned by fear. Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, a visually thrilling film of…
Christopher Nolan’s most ambitious project yet may be Interstellar. Not just in terms of scope but also in terms of emotion. The Earth is becoming slowly uninhabitable (fires, dust storms, water depletion, etc.) thanks to the hubris of mankind and so now the only recourse is to find a new habitable home . . ….
With its gritty depiction of rundown small town, USA and characters desperate to find their way, Out of the Furnace looks a lot like a film we’d come across before in 1978’s “The Deer Hunter.” But while I don’t suspect Scott Cooper’s film will win any Oscars as Michael Cimino’s did, his all-star cast also…
