This is one of the more difficult reviews I’ve had to write all year for the simple fact that writer/director Amy Seimetz’s (the prolific indie actor whose previous feature was Sun Don’t […]
Based on the 2003 Norwegian novel by Per Petterson, Out Stealing Horses is a sweeping story of traumas inflicted by war, by circumstance, even by our own families. The film version, adapted and […]
In his own way, songwriter Howard Ashman was as important a creator of a type of musical theater as more established lyricists like Stephen Sondheim, Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Andrew Lloyd Webber, […]
Frances Hodgson Burnett’s acclaimed novel The Secret Garden has been adapted into films, stage musicals and television movies so many times since its publication in 1911 that it’s difficult to keep track. […]
About five years ago, director/producer Gabe Polsky (In Search of Greatness) released Red Army, a film that told the story of the Soviet Union’s famed Red Army hockey team through the eyes […]
The last we saw Kris Rey as writer/director (she had a small on-screen role in Damien Chazelle’s First Man last year), she delivered Unexpected, a sweetly thoughtful exploration of motherhood in its […]
With the national election less three months away, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t spend some portion of every day saying a silent prayer (to whom, I’m not exactly sure) […]
Sometimes, having its heart in the right place is enough to make a good movie just a little bit more endearing. Case in point: the new World War II-era drama Summerland about […]
I can’t think of a film—documentary or otherwise—with a more horrifying opening few minutes than the Ron Howard-directed documentary Rebuilding Paradise, which begins with mostly cell phone-captured footage of the residents of […]
Actress Sheila Vand is like a secret weapon in every movie she appears in. When the second generation Iranian-American, born in Los Angeles, shows up in a film, your eyes immediately go […]
Like the other horror film released this week (The Rental, reviewed here), Romola Garai’s Amulet aspires to something impressive within contemporary genre features. It is a gorgeous production (making her feature directorial debut, Garai […]
Two horror movies arrive to watch this week, and both of them feel as though they’re aiming for something grander than what the final product actually delivers. Both are by actors turned […]
