Even bearing in mind that this film was always going to be fighting the uphill battle of the “middle film” curse, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug still didn’t quite live up to expectations. Perhaps it’s because “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” — Peter Jackson’s last “middle film”, from The Lord of…
Cold and distant meets warm and fuzzy in the little Brit pic Philomena and while the odd coupling clearly adheres to the philosophy that opposites attract, the movie is really all about sentimentality with just a side of snark. That snark comes courtesy of recently fired journalist Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan, also the script’s co-writer…
When it comes to the narrative twist, there’s the element of surprise and the element of effectiveness. The best and most memorable twists entwine the two, so we’re both caught off guard and emotionally engaged enough to care. With their short Point Mugu, director Francis Dreis and co-writers Amelia Jackson-Gray and Erin Ross get halfway…
Though Upstream Color is supported by many other professionals in the field of visual and audio effects, it is mainly the product of one man, Shane Carruth, who is the director, producer, writer, cinematographer, composer, and co-star. It is no secret Carruth’s films play with our minds but, though his latest film is enigmatic and…
Alexander Payne, in his comedy-drama Nebraska, paints a picture of a decaying rural America, one that has become a spiritual and economic wasteland for the few that remain. Its empty streets, boarded up storefronts and the few businesses left cater to an elderly population that seems to care nothing about improving the quality of their…
What happens when a slouch finds out he has more children than he can count on 100 hands? Well, in director Ken Scott’s world, the result is Delivery Man an underdeveloped, klutzy film that, while full of potential, evaporates quickly amid humorless scenarios and faulty acting from a cast of youngsters who are supposedly adversely…
Produced in collaboration with the National Film Board of Canada, Canadian director Sarah Polley’s documentary Stories We Tell is a tender and often moving inquiry into the life of her mother Diana who died in 1990 from cancer when Sarah was only eleven years old. Her investigation, consisting of interviews with her Toronto family members…
