Michael Jackson’s death this year elicited a lot of strong responses in the world, from deep mourning to disdainful pedophile jokes. When this film was announced, the cynics of the world eyed it as a last ditch to profit off the talented, troubled man who now lies in Forest Lawn Cemetery. I was pleased – [...]

After Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, I was very concerned that this very talky, complex book would be ruined like the last film.  Shining beacon of hope:  Screenwriter Steve Kloves is back! And it makes all the difference in the world.  Kloves really gets JK Rowling’s books and distills the important bits [...]

As I was on the way to the theatre to see Up, my friend, who had just come out of it, texted me “Bring Kleenex!” I was surprised – the previews make Up look like a silly Land of the Lost lark (nothing wrong with that). I was confident I’d enjoy it, I mean, come [...]

Twenty years later, the battered face looking out at his fans is so weary, so changed, and yet full of regret and good intentions. Am I speaking of actor Mickey Rourke or his character, Randy “The Ram” Robinson? Either way, your heart opens up to the guy almost immediately, and by the end, it’s love. [...]

Waltz With Bashir is a unique, arresting piece of work. As a documentary, it mostly trucks with events locked in memories, rather than assembling found footage or archival documents. A fellow Israeli veteran of the 1982 Lebanon War recounts his disturbing recurring dream to the writer/director/narrator Ari Folman, who was then inspired in to seek [...]

This biopic was reportedly 30 years in the making. Over the years, scripts and stars have come and gone; then Brokeback Mountain opened some doors long closed. Now, glowing in the dark shadow of California Proposition 8 (banning the previously legal gay marriage) comes Gus Van Sant’s Milk with a terrific script. It also has [...]

Baz Luhrmann’s few movies can be described as anything from whimsical tweaks to wild, ecstatic fantasias, but rarely have they followed any sort of formula. When I say that Australia is a good old-fashioned Golden Age of Hollywood romantic epic, I mean it in the best sense. The wild setting of Australia’s Northern Territory, the [...]

One of the brilliant posters for American Teen echoes the iconic poster for the movie The Breakfast Club, including its overly dramatic tagline. While “Heart-throb” Mitch seems a little shoe-horned into Judd Nelson’s “Criminal” position, the other leads in this film slide effortlessly into their pigeonholes…at first. It’s true that today’s teenagers are the most [...]

Wow, what an experience! The movie starts hard core with a crime in progress, a common every-day cinema crime. All the rules are being broken again and again, making what was a workaday heist into a peek into the madness behind the perpetrator’s madness. The Joker’s paradigm is eschew predictability, and the Dark Knight movie [...]

The ads for this movie tell you all you need to know about it: it’s a major attack on New York City shot entirely from the point of view of one consumer digital video camera. I would never spoil the surprises that await you, wanting instead to urge you to go see it. However, if [...]