This is exactly the kind of movie that will kick butt all over the place critically and then, as the characters themselves note, drift away into the backs of our consciousness. The film is set in 1994, during a terrible internal genocide between two groups of Rwandans whose only actual difference was determined arbitrarily […]

Thank goodness I had not read the Iliad before I saw this film. (And no, I am not so much of a smartypants that I read it after, either). Had I been more familiar with the source material - “source” in that the names and locations are very similar - I would have […]

As a Texas native, I went into this Hollywood biopic (or is it historical drama?) with some trepidation. With a gal from Amarillo on my left and a gal from Orange County on my right, I found the experience extremely gratifying. As my wise Californian companion noted, a film about the Alamo has […]

It is tempting to, and almost impossible not to, review the content of this film, rather than its many filmmaking merits. Robert McNamara, whose many accomplishments in life include 7 years as the Secretary of Defense under John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, talks about war, politics, culpability, and the eleven lessons he learned that […]

Focus Features’ inaugural year brings us what is surely to become a dramatic classic. 2002 was particularly chock full of quality, and I hope this smaller, quieter, sadder film is not ignored. It will affect you for some time after watching it, so proceed with that knowledge.
Hangdog actor Adrien Brody plays the titular […]

To be honest, I saw this film long ago, and every time I have retroactively gone back to catch up, I skipped this one. This does not bode well for the film. I am sure my readers are weary of this sort of excuse, but honestly, a movie that disappears (despite the admittedly […]

Between my awe at this film and the regrettable downfall of my cable modem service, I have been unable to share truly how impressed I was and am at this film. Opening the movie are some tight, gliding images of desolation and human suffering in Somalia, with the back story for the events of […]

Don’t be fooled by the high rating for this film - I am not branding it as the historically accurate document of a few weeks that will live in infamy; nor am I singing the praises for the wordsmiths who watched a lot of M*A*S*H and not a lot of Jane Austen before setting pen […]

I have to say this first off - I really do not like Matthew McConaughey. The fact that a movie which features his bongo-ness in practically every frame and continues the sad decline of Bill Paxton’s career can still garner a Full Price Feature can mean only one thing: summer is here, with […]

I was very late in seeing this feature, due to a variety of intrastate reasons; but I was definitely looking forward to the movie. Before I went, I asked my friend who was in Desert Storm special forces what he thought of it - his was the only dissenting opinion of the film. […]