Loosely based on director Mike Mills’ own experience as the son of a gay father who came out in his seventies, Beginners is the story of sexual and emotional repression, thwarted relationships, and fresh starts. Hal (Christopher Plummer), at age 75, tells his 38-year-old son Oliver (Ewan McGregor), that he is gay and has been…
Making a genuinely good, original Christmas movie is a difficult task in this day and age. Added to this, after Fred Claus, The Polar Express, The Santa Clause and other such motion pictures, it seems impossible to put another fresh spin on Santa Claus and his North Pole universe. Enter the British animation studio Aardman,…
I may be going soft in my old age. A documentary about a man learning to be a Santa Claus, and I give it a perfect score? Yes, I gave it a one, and if zero were better I’d give it that. I’ve watched many a cruel movie this year; too many times I’ve watched…
I never thought the life of a pickpocket was particularly endearing but after seeing the trailer for IFC Films’ Loosies, I’m not so sure. Master thief Bobby seems to be cruising along easy street — fine dining, buying to his hearts content and bedding pretty girls — that is until he finds out a one-night…
Character growth seems like a lost art in many films these days but I’m happy to say that self-discovery plays a prominent role in The Descendants, Alexander Payne’s first film since Sideways seven years ago. Based on the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings, George Clooney is Matt King, a well-to-do real estate lawyer, who lives…
During the mid-fifties American puppeteer Jim Henson, and his muppets, a varied collection of custom marionettes, took the entertainment world by storm. Through the years, the most iconic has been Kermit the Frog, the only “amphibian” to address the Oxford Union, and also the first to receive an honorary doctorate from Southampton College. But although…
In 2006 George Miller, Warren Coleman, Judy Morris, and John Collee brought us “Happy Feet,” which proved that despite being confined to the barren, icy wasteland of Antarctica, penguins can have fun too (usually by singing radio hits). Despite mild controversy over the film’s environmentalist stance and its supposed polar reconstruction of an urban environment…
