Filmed in stop-motion animation, Duke Johnson and Charlie Kaufman’s (“Synecdoche, New York”) Anomalisa is a look at loneliness and its psychological effects. Filled with existential despair, it is also funny, surreal, and thought-provoking, a film that can touch you in ways you never thought possible. Nominated for Best Animated film at the 2016 Oscars and…
In 1933, Jimmy Gralton (Barry Ward, “Blood Cells”) became the only Irish citizen ever to have been deported from Ireland when he was exiled to America without a trial. His crime seems to be that he was a Communist who incurred the ire of the Catholic Church and the landlords by daring to establish a…
Fairy tale revisionism has run rampant across screens of late, so with the marketplace heavily saturated, there’s no better time to revive Stephen Sondheim’s subversive musical “Into the Woods,” about a convergence of fairy tale characters discovering what lies on either side of happily ever after. Sondheim’s playful lyrics and rich humor ensure that his…
Why settle on re-imaging one fairy tale at a time (“Jack The Giant Slayer,” “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters,” “Snow White and the Huntsman”) when a host of them can be combined and kneaded into a single movie? With Into the Woods, Walt Disney Pictures does just that, threading elements of Cinderella, Little Red Riding…
A movie musical based on a stage musical built on pre-existing music certainly has some of its work done for it right from the point of cinematic conception, but even with such a head start, Clint Eastwood still applies enough tender, heartfelt identity to his adaptation, Jersey Boys, to make the screen version a touching…
When it comes to tales of familial strife, movies sure love to put the fun in dysfunctional. But in the dark, depressing August: Osage County, the Weston family settles for nothing less than the whole word. There’s nothing particularly fun about this group, not when it’s just matriarch Violet (Meryl Streep) screaming at patriarch Beverly…
Many of William Shakespeare’s heroines are proud and witty women who are reluctant to be wooed; for example, Rosaline of Love’s Labor’s Lost, and Rosalind of As You Like It. One of the most high-spirited characters in Shakespeare is Beatrice, the niece of Leonato in Much Ado About Nothing, a sharp-tongued woman who more than…
