“Et tu, Brute?” — William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 1 Capitalism came into this world the same way in which every other system has been brought about: Through families. Yes, I know . . . you’re probably thinking that I’m full of shit, that I’m making things up, that I’m falling into gross…
Evidently filmmaker Garry Marshall cannot seem to get away from his tediously formulaic playbook of themed movie-making and certainly the tepid and toothless Mother’s Day reinforces this cinematic sentiment. Marshall is determined to exploit these cornball conveyor belt holiday-based movies that shamelessly boast an all-star cast, shallow sentimentality, heavy-handed and forced nuttiness and the gimmickry of…
The increasing number of recent films featuring stories of Christian faith or history (“God’s Not Dead 2,” “Miracles from Heaven,” “Risen,” just to name a few) hearken back to the days when Biblical films ruled the motion picture landscape. From 1953’s “The Robe” to 1956’s “The Ten Commandments” and “Friendly Persuasion” to the grand-daddy of…
Although some may want a second helping of baklava it is not certain that they would also mind another round of the Portokalos clan in the boisterous but slight familial ethnic comedy My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2. When the original sleeper hit first emerged onto the big screen back in 2002 it was quite…
Generally, part of the charm of international cinema is that it’s specifically and obviously not Hollywood cinema. So when something like the Norwegian disaster drama The Wave tries so desperately and artlessly to ape similarly themed Hollywood blockbusters, there’s a sense of overwhelmingly suffocating futility that plagues the project. Of course, if The Wave actually…
In a trailer commentary video that can be viewed on IMDb, Robert Eggers, writer and director of The Witch, explains that what he set out to accomplish with his debut film was to transport twenty-first century viewers back to the seventeenth, to a time when “the real world and the fairy tale world were the…
Needs to wake up. Must open his eyes. But he’s not asleep. The guy’s not sleeping; he just doesn’t want to be awake. John’s days aren’t at all a source of motivation, not even of mild excitement. He looks tired. He is tired. Tired of needing so much and of being needed even more. Tired…
