Some movies are essentially indescribable, at least in terms of genre, type or even effect.  Such is the case with American Hustle, David O. Russell’s new exploration of the 1970s.  On the surface it is a very loose interpretation of […]

Who knew there was so much turmoil behind the story of Mary Poppins?  In 1964 the public was presented with a jolly holiday of a movie replete with joyful music, peppy characters and a serious but sweet undertone.  It won […]

Director and co-writer Scott Cooper has made what could have been a really good, provocative revenge thriller; at least, that’s what the preview promised.  Sadly, the result is a slow, muddled thriller without any thrills. Two brothers (Christian Bale, Casey […]

I am on record as being rather ambivalent about the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy that Peter Jackson fashioned a decade ago.  They are certainly well made movies, but I cannot connect with them in any meaningful way.  Middle Earth […]

Although Lee Daniels’ newest film, The Butler, features some terrific actors (including Oprah Winfrey in her acting return to the big screen after more than a decade), it is a strange amalgam of a movie that will probably satisfy few […]

Another entrant in the “based on a true story” movie sweepstakes is this fact-based drama centered on the efforts of Ron Woodroof (Matthew McConaughey) to survive his exposure to HIV in the 1980s.  Apart from a few visual anachronisms, the […]

Movies “based on a true story” are all the rage this season, and some of them, like Captain Phillips and this one, are very good indeed.  Truth is often stranger than fiction, and fictionalized truth — in the form of movies […]

I wasn’t expecting much from this Southern style revenge action flick, so I was pleasantly surprised by certain elements of it.  The story has a former DEA agent (Jason Statham) and his young daughter trying to build a new life […]