If one likes their World War II films with a healthy dose of F-words, open lesbianism, cocaine use and sexual acts too numerous to count, then the newest Paramount release, Allied, is certainly the picture for you. A mix of “Casablanca,” “Hope and Glory,” with even a little “Inglourious Basterds” thrown in, this romcom war/thriller…
Xavier Dolan opens It’s Only the End of the World with the caption: “Somewhere a while ago, already.” The comma is extremely important, as it plays with the past tense of a while ago and the present tense of the already, almost as a physical presence, already there. It was a while ago since I…
Parents are beings anonymously bestowed with the responsibility of protecting their children from their own fears. Fear is thus transmitted and embedded into the habits and reflexes that follow all kids till, and if, they grow to parent their own offspring . . . and on and on it goes. That’s all part and parcel…
The 1920’s were the culmination of the greatest wave of immigration in American history in which more than 25 million people arrived, mostly from Southern and Eastern Europe, to escape the aftermath of the Great War and its resulting poverty and oppression, or simply to embrace the promise of the “American Dream.” Many of these…
Rust and Bone, directed and co-written by Jacques Audiard (writer/director of Oscar nominated, “A Prophet”) depicts the slowly developing love story of Stephanie (Marion Cotillard, “The Dark Knight Rises”) and Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts, “Bullhead”) who, despite being an unlikely pairing, form a bond through tragedy and life’s misfortunes. When Stephanie is first introduced she appears…
It’s all in a touch — love, rage, suffering and happiness are all defined by our proximity to one another. Even a soldier a thousand miles away staring at a screen that a drone projects back to him needs to press a key to make an insurgent disappear. Steven Soderbergh’s fitfully disturbing and fully realized…
Besides a nuclear disaster, one of the biggest fears any government can have is the outbreak of a fast spreading, lethal virus. And it is this premise that the upcoming thriller Contagion delivers on. How does the populace react as more and more people fall victim? How will the government handle the growing fear (both…
