Spanning 16 years, Talk To Me purports to be the tale of Ralph Waldo “Petey” Greene’s rise from obscurity, I say purports, because the always excellent Don Cheadle is vying for Best Actor, and his equally excellent costar Chiwetel Ejiofor is only billed as Supporting Actor, and I think the story is about the two […]
Denzel Washington is the African-American actor who all America loves, even those people who are vaguely uncomfortable with non-whites in movies. His broad grin, sparkling charm and intelligence, and prodigious acting skills, have won the hearts of America’s filmgoers above any considerations of race. I bring this up because it has got to […]
As the sequel to 1998’s lauded movie Elizabeth, this film could perhaps have been called Elizabeth I: II: Liz Harder. She’s established herself as powerful, and this time, it’s personal. It’s 1585. She’s 52 (a well-preserved sexy Cate Blanchett of a 52) and has been on the throne for 27 years and […]
Letters from Iwo Jima is a film that is too long, yet has no time to fully plumb the depths of its fascinating topic. Beginning with a 2005 excavation of the famed 1944 battle site, Letters dares to explore the minds and hearts of our then-enemies while they were engaged in a losing battle against […]
The Pursuit of Happyness, inspired by true events in the life of Chris Gardner, is a perfect movie to show around Thanksgiving and the winter holidays. This is a story of a man against whom all the world seems to conspire (and indeed, it seems very little was out of his power to avoid), […]
The events of Catch a Fire begin in South Africa in 1980, during the violent years of Apartheid. The film begins slowly and gives us a leisurely tour of its two main characters, Patrick Chamusso (Antwone Fisher’s Derek Luke) and Nic Vos (Tim Robbins). Chamusso is a non-political black man making his way […]
Comparisons to 2005’s film Capote are both inevitable and necessary - both films deal with Truman Capote’s fascination with murderers Dick Hickock and especially Perry Smith, and writing his novel about the murders, In Cold Blood. I must say it’s impossible to describe how deeply and vitally different these films are from each other.
Keep […]
When Princess Diana met her untimely death in Paris in 1997, having divorced the Prince and living a new life with Dodi Fayed, the Royal Family was curiously silent. While Britain and the world mourned openly a woman they had come to embrace even more passionately than the Royals, her surviving former in-laws holed […]
Much has been said already about Forest Whitaker’s performance as Idi Amin (legendary dictator of Uganda) in this film, and when one sits down with such high expectations, one tends to be disappointed. However, Whitaker’s portrayal of this fascinating and complex man is truly a wonder to behold.
Our lead character is actually Dr. Nicholas […]
All The King’s Men has been positioned as an Oscar Movie ™ since the first preview. Indeed, it has a high-caliber cast, a political storyline rife for modern-day allegory and/or commentary, and gorgeous montage-friendly shots of Depression-era-looking crowds rippling like wheat with earnest emotion. What it doesn’t have is that certain depth of […]
