Bullying normally leads to lasting enmity between the perpetrator and the victim. Only occasionally does it lead to friendship. Rarely does it lead to love, but such is the case in André Téchiné’s (“In the Name of My Daughter”) masterful coming of age drama, Being 17 (Quand on a 17 ans), his best film since…
Dealing with the aftermath of a tragedy turns a once warm and ebullient family man into a solemn, withdrawn, and angry loner in Kenneth Lonergan’s (“Margaret”) bittersweet drama Manchester by the Sea, one of the best films of 2016. Set in the picturesque city of Manchester on Massachusetts’ north shore, cinematographer Jody Lee Lipes (“Martha…
There exists no alternative in critiquing James Steven Sadwith’s Coming Through the Rye without first discussing the novel which both its title and story derives from. Personally speaking, I never finished reading The Catcher in the Rye. Despite the national uproar that the novel stirred by its addition to school curriculums in the United States,…
Ah, to be young, feminine and fiendish en route to womanhood on the big screen. The movies have had its share of little devilish darlings in the movies that have caused havoc through instances of seduction, spirit possession, the supernatural or just plain evil-minded deeds. In the Top 10 Little Devilish Darlings in the Movies…
The mythically nostalgic allure of the adolescent summer spent at the lake crosses paths with the trashy, twisty nastiness of the psychosexual thriller in Careful What You Wish For, an entertaining, though highly derivative jaunt through the usual genre motions. For some reason, the protagonist is played by a Jonas brother, but Nick proves capable…
Times are tough. These times I mean. Or rather, Tim Blake Nelson does, or seems to do in his Anesthesia. These are times of self-absorbing, self-imbibing, self-obsessed selfishness from which we’re constantly trying to tell ourselves apart — unwittingly remitting ourselves to the badlands of choice wherein our decisions continue to be ruled by self-interest…
The laser-like focus afforded by a compact running time is used to intensely impactful use in Phil Sheerin’s North, a 20-minute short about a teen boy wrestling with the inevitability of his ailing mother’s impending death. It’s rough subject matter, bleak and tragic, the kind of thing that would tempt many filmmakers to tug at…
