Family love and honor are forged in steel for Haofeng Xu’s dazzling generational epic The Hidden Sword, which crisply chronicles China’s early-to-mid 20th century history of war as seen through the eyes of blade-bearing walnut farmers. One family has the film’s focus while Xu allows a curious concoction of quirky humor, astonishing action, and rippling…
Here’s the thing about travel nightmares and existential crises, we’ve all had them. Jungle, based on Israeli adventurer, author and humanitarian Yossi Ghinsberg’s memoir of the same name, puts both on display to horrifying effect. This travel diary gone awry does to hiking in the Amazon what “Brokedown Palace” did to Thailand (in my 14-year…
A young boy, trailing his Radio Flyer down the sidewalk behind him, goes door to door collecting comics. But he is neither superfan nor traveling salesman. Professor Marston and the Wonder Women opens with a book burning demonstration after the most successful female superhero comic has been maligned by its self-righteous critics for its representation…
The irony and timely arrival of the conscientious and stirring drama Shot should not be lost on a majority of savvy movie-goers and television addicts. First, the film’s lead, Noah Wyle (also one of the many producers behind this urban narrative’s stark commentary on senseless violence), played a young dedicated doctor used to helping critically…
Like a lonely, mysterious gunslinger from the Old West, a tall, slender rugged-looking man with a thick mustache comes to a small Bulgarian village near the Grecian border as part of a German work crew in Valeska Grisebach’s (“Longing”) Western. The man is Meinhard (Meinhard Neumann), in Bulgaria to work on a hydroelectric power station…
Whether or not it is designed as an allegory of modern Russia, no film in recent memory has examined the growing emptiness of human relationships with such expressive force as Andrey Zvyagintsev’s (“Leviathan”) Loveless, a heart wrenching drama about a couple on the brink of divorce whose emotional neglect of their son leads to devastating…
Surprisingly again, Reese Witherspoon (Lead Actress Oscar winner for “Walk the Line”) has settled for signing on the dotted line to partake in a woefully rudimentary romantic comedy. Usually considered somewhat of a spark plug in her plucky-type of roles (“Legally Blonde” being the most revered), Witherspoon is curiously reduced to playing what amounts to…
