“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” — Albert Einstein As a boy growing up in Washington Heights, Manhattan, I spent many weekends walking the streets of New York, particularly the Bronx which I walked almost…
Fighting With My Family is a film of weird elements: The city of Norwich, England; wrestling, with all its “fixed but not fake” performances, alternative names and larger than life personalities; a very human and indeed true story of both pursuing and losing out on a dream. Based on the story of Saraya Knight aka…
The special forces sub-genre combines elements of the cop, spy and soldier film, and is characterized by jargon, hardware, institutionalized yet independent characters and almost-but-not-quite overwhelming odds. Notable examples include “Tears of the Sun,” “Zero Dark Thirty,” “Triple Frontier” and “The Expendables” franchise. Given their practice of taking established generic traditions and infusing them with…
Much like the immediate outlook of its unlucky characters, the details are stark in Arctic. In Joe Penna’s pulls-no-punches survivalist drama, the seemingly skyscraper-sized “SOS” carved out in deep snow; the remains of a grounded, battered plane that looks like it’s flown through hell and back; and the pop of red of a winter coat…
Is it possible to do questionable things for a noble cause? Well, veteran director Catherine Hardwicke (“Twilight”) and first-time full feature screenwriter Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer clumsily answer that thematic question with Miss Bala, an Americanized reshaping of a 2011 Spanish-language tale with the same name. Their vision replays similar story beats as the original, but lacks…
After nearly three weeks since my press screening, I have been secretly dreading composing a review for James Cameron’s latest production, Alita: Battle Angel. Even more so than dreading it, I was truly unsure of how to approach it, since the experience has almost completely been wiped from my memory (for the better, incidentally). But…
The term “cliffhanger” is thought to have originated from Thomas Hardy’s 1873 novel A Pair Of Blue Eyes. Hardy ended the story with one of his protagonists hanging off a cliff edge, staring down at impending death. Cliffhangers have since become ubiquitous with serialized television and, more lately, film series (the ending to Marvel’s recent…
