“Education is the silver bullet. Education is everything.” – Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe) on The West Wing Affirmative stories are nothing new. Stories that try to uplift audiences through the overcoming of adversity have brought about films like Brian’s Song… Read More ›
Mike Nichols can be described as one of the best 21st century directors with titles under his belt like Who’s Afraid of Virgina Woolf? (1966), The Graduate (1967), Working Girl (1988), Charlie Wilson’s War (2007), and Carnal Knowledge (1971), so… Read More ›
If someone is asked to identify their favorite war-related films, most likely they’ll name American-made films, not because they’re inherently better but because they are often more prolific. The truth is that war is one of the few concepts that… Read More ›
Art isn’t for everyone. It can be profitable for the artist if it is, striking the balance between personal vision and widespread appreciation, but it’s not a necessity. Sometimes art is entirely for the artist, the work so niche that… Read More ›
Each story — the ones we tell ourselves that make up our reality and the ones that creatives make for the books, shows, and films we ingest — is a matter of perspective and, frequently, the audience is rarely asked… Read More ›
Eephus (2024), now out on Blu-ray, is a great American movie because, like America’s Favorite Pastime, it captures the ways we can be and have forgotten how to be — communal, patient, and honorable, surprisingly loud, and sometimes surprisingly quiet… Read More ›
Have you seen Justin Kurzel’s highly under the radar crime thriller, The Order (2024)? Did you see it and immediately think to yourself that you wanted to see more of this? If you haven’t, have you seen some of Dick… Read More ›
Warning: The following review will include discussion of violent imagery, infanticide, and genocide. If you read my piece last year on Hayao Miyazaki’s modern masterpiece The Boy and the Heron (君たちはどう生きるか) (2023), then you know that the Ghibli studio head… Read More ›
With few exceptions, American-based action stars primarily relied on either physical strength (Arnold Schwarzenegger) or firearms (Bruce Willis; Eddie Murphy) as the means for righting perceived wrongs. Slowly, however, thanks to actors like Chuck Norris (Enter the Dragon; Missing in… Read More ›
If you’ve never seen F. Gary Gray’s Law Abiding Citizen, then stop reading this right now, go find a copy (this new snazzy steelbook is now available), and sit down and watch it (preferably the unrated cut as it has… Read More ›
The longer one is alive, the more one learns about history, the more timeline events feel like traveling in a circle, rather than in a flat line. Communities build up, empires rise, blights come, and, eventually, the empires fall. The… Read More ›
Turn on the tv, switch on a streaming service, and you’re going to find some form of programming. These programs, whether you realize it or not, are planned as meticulously as possible to ensure that entertainment is high, all the… Read More ›
Writer-director Todd Solondz’s fifth feature Palindromes (2004) — a film of taboos, hypocrisies, and uncomfortable hard truths – is an exercise in cynical, cruel comedy. Known as one of independent cinema’s favorite misanthropes, Solondz paints his twisted portrait of motherhood,… Read More ›
Under the relentless sun in the coastal Spanish town of Almería, a chronically ill woman and her daughter/caretaker grapple with years of suppressed tension and resentment as the mother seeks treatment for a mysterious condition that has left her unable… Read More ›
This film is a miracle of cinema. Let me explain. After struggles making the film, including production delays, cast conflicts, and more, William Friedkin’s tense masterpiece of a thriller Sorcerer was finally released in cinemas in 1977. Another film released… Read More ›
Before filmmaker Christopher McQuarrie accepted the mission four times (Mission: Impossible franchise) and before he adapted Lee Child’s nomadic former MP for the big screen (Jack Reacher (2012)), he started out with his own creation, the neo-western The Way of… Read More ›
When people talk about stories standing the test of time, at least in America, it’s usually in a hyperbolic sense, talking about the awesome impact and influence that a specific tale has infiltrated since conception. We certainly have stories to… Read More ›
In the history of the world, there have been indigenous peoples and there have been colonizers. In some cases, it’s viewed as a matter of perspective, but, by and large, if a people originated from a location, they are the… Read More ›
Content Warning: One Spoon of Chocolate features several instances of violence against Black bodies that may prove triggering for sensitive viewers. Musician RZA made his full feature directorial debut with 2012’s The Man with the Iron Fists, a Shaw Brothers-style… Read More ›
I am not going to pretend that the name Sophie Toscan du Plantier means anything to me outside of the context of the film as I do not follow famous deaths or cold cases. However, maybe if I was older… Read More ›