“Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes” — Wilfred Owen, “Anthem for Doomed Youth” In 1915, Australian and New Zealand (Anzac) soldiers formed part of the expedition that set out to capture the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey in order to open the Dardanelles to the…
During World War II, the Nazis plundered an estimated 750,000 artworks from European countries including priceless paintings by Van Gogh, Degas, Vermeer, and Michelangelo. Though many paintings and other significant cultural artifacts were recovered by the “Monuments Men,” many were destroyed or auctioned off at extremely low prices. Today, there are well over 100,000 items…
Keishi Ohtomo’s new film, Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends, is the final in the live-action trilogy based on Nobuhiro Watsuki’s best selling manga series. In it, Shishio (Tatsuya Fujiwara, “The Secret World of Arrietty”) is on a mission of chaos and so he sets sail in his terrifying ironclad battleship to bring down the Meiji…
Cheese. Beloved by Wallace and Gromit; source of comedic consternation for George Clooney in “Burn After Reading;” key ingredient for Remy in “Ratatouille.” Hardly the most disturbing food to be portrayed on screen. Nonetheless, writer-director Darren Darnborough succeeds in making his short film about cheese sinister and sexy in equal measure, as well as exquisitely…
There’s plenty to like about director Daniel Espinosa’s (“Safe House”) latest politically-driven crime thriller, Child 44. There’s a strict hierarchy of Iron Curtain power, no holds barred bloodshed, costumes that rival the best period pieces and, most importantly, a mesmerizing story (based off of Tom Rob Smith’s novel bearing the same name). There’s plenty of…
Unfriended is the kind of movie that I already can’t wait to watch again in ten years. Better yet–I’d love to watch teenagers ten years from now watch it and see if it makes any sense to them. This is to say, Unfriended is a movie that is violently in the moment, a unique and…
Judas Ghost, an indie British horror/fantasy inspired by Simon R. Green’s “Ghost Finders” series, feels more like a sequel than a standalone piece. This is to say, while watching it, one feels like what they are seeing would make far more sense — and have far higher stakes — if significantly more background information had…
