You don’t need to have a master’s in communications to be aware that technology fundamentally changes the way human beings interact with one another, and by extension, changes the way we conduct our relationships. From vehicles allowing distances that would previously take weeks to traverse to be cleared in a matter of hours, to the…
When the beautiful, young Saoirse (pronounced “Seersha”) Ronan stunned us all with a fantastic performance as the title character in “Hanna,” it was easy to believe she’d soon be taking Hollywood by storm; little did we know that what she has in talent, she unfortunately seems to lack in wise decisions. First came the latest…
After a disastrous last outing with “Battleship,” Peter Berg, has struck gold with his latest project based on the Navy, Lone Survivor. One part “Black Hawk Down” for patriotism and one part “Saving Private Ryan,” for viscerality, it is an extremely visual, potent film that follows four Navy SEALs who are dropped into Afghanistan to…
In December of 2009, I was fortunate to have a friend who liked me enough to invite me to the Paramount premiere Blu-ray party at her house for a small horror film I’d turned her onto (she had entered a contest and lo and behold, she won). That movie was “Paranormal Activity,” and it had…
Early in 2013, a small film, Adore, based on the novella “The Grandmothers” by Doris Lessing played at the Sundance Film Festival. It screened in limited release in the US in September, and then quietly went to DVD. The film takes on an uncomfortable story of two grown women — the best of childhood friends…
Walt’s schmaltz, both old and new, is on display in the cute little period piece Saving Mr. Banks, which looks at a particularly bumpy stretch on the Disney-paved road to turning Mary Poppins into a cinematic classic. There’s a war over sentimentality being waged between Disney himself (a warm, welcoming Tom Hanks here) and Mary…
Folk music has been around ever since there have been folks, but the folk revival of the 1960s was due in large part to the increased topicality of the songs and their relevance to the changing times. Though singers such as Joan Baez and Ian & Sylvia among others continued to sing traditional ballads, singer/songwriters…
