Short films can achieve many things in their compact running time, but the teasing out of a character-driven mystery is surely one of their most intriguing aims. Oliver S. Milburn’s tight little real estate drama Dunroamin is seemingly about nothing more than a young man touring a nice country house that is up for sale,…
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…
Bullying normally leads to lasting enmity between the perpetrator and the victim. Only occasionally does it lead to friendship. Rarely does it lead to love, but such is the case in André Téchiné’s (“In the Name of My Daughter”) masterful coming of age drama, Being 17 (Quand on a 17 ans), his best film since…
Yes, even Father Time catches up to Wolverine. In what is expected to be Hugh Jackman’s last go as the taloned anti-hero, Wolverine has markedly aged in the upcoming Logan. That of course doesn’t mean he can’t dish out cold Adamantium justice though. With the X-Men gone and Professor Charles Xavier suffering Alzheimer’s, Logan must…
There’s certainly no accounting as to why Ben Affleck (“Gone Girl”) would choose this, The Accountant, a tepid and convoluted thriller to star in, but all I know is I wish I could deduct the two-plus hours I spent at the cinema to see it; time I will never get back in a refund next…
The great American poet Emily Dickinson wrote: “Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me; The carriage held but just ourselves And Immortality.” Whether or not Dickinson stopped for life, it kindly stopped for her and her immortality is enshrined in the legacy of the 1800 exquisite poems she left, only…
Dealing with the aftermath of a tragedy turns a once warm and ebullient family man into a solemn, withdrawn, and angry loner in Kenneth Lonergan’s (“Margaret”) bittersweet drama Manchester by the Sea, one of the best films of 2016. Set in the picturesque city of Manchester on Massachusetts’ north shore, cinematographer Jody Lee Lipes (“Martha…
