Alexander Payne, in his comedy-drama Nebraska, paints a picture of a decaying rural America, one that has become a spiritual and economic wasteland for the few that remain. Its empty streets, boarded up storefronts and the few businesses left cater to an elderly population that seems to care nothing about improving the quality of their…
What happens when a slouch finds out he has more children than he can count on 100 hands? Well, in director Ken Scott’s world, the result is Delivery Man an underdeveloped, klutzy film that, while full of potential, evaporates quickly amid humorless scenarios and faulty acting from a cast of youngsters who are supposedly adversely…
Produced in collaboration with the National Film Board of Canada, Canadian director Sarah Polley’s documentary Stories We Tell is a tender and often moving inquiry into the life of her mother Diana who died in 1990 from cancer when Sarah was only eleven years old. Her investigation, consisting of interviews with her Toronto family members…
With his directorial debut, Don Jon (for which he was also the screenwriter), Joseph Gordon-Levitt has certainly proven he’s a man of many talents. The film itself is not without its flaws, but for a first venture behind the camera rather than in front of it, Don Jon reminds us that throughout his career, Gordon-Levitt…
And here I thought “A Haunted House” or what has become of the Scary Movie franchise (“Scary Movie 4,” “Scary Movie 5“) was as deep as the horror parody cesspool went. No, to my surprise it apparently goes much, much deeper. Ghost Team One, with its liberal use of profanity (most of which is painfully…
Real heroes do not always end up with glory and parades. Heroism is sometimes reflected in small scale actions that no one ever hears about but occur every day in schools, hospitals or wherever there are people who need compassion. Werner Erhard defines true heroism as “the kind which ends up in the truth, in…
Having survived the 74th Annual Hunger Games on their terms in “The Hunger Games,” Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence, “Silver Linings Playbook”) and fellow District 12 tribute Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson, “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island”) are national heroes. As we find in the second installment, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, however, this new found fame…
