Paul Thomas Anderson’s films have a tendency to take you by the shoulders and shake you rigorously, to leave you with an unforgettable scene, moment or quote (“I drink your milkshake!”, anyone?). “The Master” short-changes none of us on lasting images, but the fearless director’s long-awaited return to film after six years is less visceral; […]

Grief is a process. Psychology books and personal experience will tell you that. Perhaps not all of us experience someone being ripped from our lives in an instant, but the process is always the same. Why then, is it so challenging to watch 9-year-old Oskar (Thomas Horn), whose father (Tom Hanks) dies in the 9/11 […]

Few of us can truly grasp the economic fundamentals of the 2008 stock market crash—how it happened, why it happened. Most of what we understand are the after effects, the human consequences. Rookie filmmaker J.C. Chandor’s “Margin Call” attempts to merge those two understandings: the economics and the executive-level decision-making with the real-life impact and […]

Historical fiction espionage thrillers have a devoted fan base, as do the novels of John le Carré. These folks are an intellectual lot, stimulated by the secret dealings of the world’s intelligence agencies, which during the Cold War were at an all-time high. And they can keep “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” a film that despite […]

It might not be an election year, but politics never take a break from being cutthroat. “The Ides of March” peels back the curtain on election campaigns, in this case those of two Democrats vying for their party’s nomination. Based on the play “Farragut North” by Beau Willimon, who had a hand in the screenplay, “Ides” […]

Most movies don’t know how to handle cancer. Heck, most people don’t know how to handle cancer — and I’m not talking about the patients. Cancer, or any other terminal illness for that matter, almost always plays some kind x-factor in a film — that is when a film even dares to enter a realm […]

Sports movies have always been preoccupied with what’s happening on the field, the court, the ring or what have you. They tell stories of underdogs defying the odds and champion values of honor, courage and determination. “Moneyball” peels back that obvious first layer yet achieves all those very same ends. The sport of baseball is […]

Late-summer Civil Rights dramas don’t come around much. In fact, late-summer dramas don’t come around much period, but “The Help” has just the right pinches of humor and bright colors to keep it from becoming a weighty affair more suited for the winter awards contenders. Don’t assume, however, that come the turn of seasons that […]

During parts of “Network,” you have to wonder if it’s a joke. The exploitation of a lunatic news anchor/prophet for financial gain with society just buying right in? Nuts. “Network” can definitely be viewed as an extreme and an unlikelihood, but that’s not to negate its powerful message and frightening ideas about media, consumerism and […]

Compelling figures make for compelling drama. Compelling characters who feel ordinary make for award-worthy drama. The script that David Seidler assembled into “The King’s Speech” using purely research taps into a story that’s simply gold: a British monarch, whom we are accustomed to view as having an inherent infallibility, with a speech impediment that makes […]

When it comes to winning awards, boxing films seem to always be contenders; as such, the thought of watching “another boxing film” can be off-putting. But “The Fighter” hangs in and fends off those labels, earning every bit of its critical praise. That’s because most of the fighting in this film takes place out of […]

Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan” will leave a myriad of lasting impressions on different people for different reasons, but universally, the film will prove to the masses that ballet is most definitely not boring. Beautiful, thrilling, breathtaking — yes, I’m referring to both the art form and the film. “Black Swan” echoes everything there is to […]

As demonstrated by his ability to earn acclaim in everything from zombie films (“28 Days Later”) to foreign coming-of-age love stories (“Slumdog Millionaire”), Danny Boyle has an extraordinary gift as a filmmaker and in “127 Hours,” he channels it into an extraordinary story of human willpower. This could have easily been a compelling but plain […]

The eternal question of “what happens after we die?” is about as enigmatic as the kind of film Clint Eastwood’s latest, “Hereafter,” tries to be. Supernatural? Thriller? Relationship drama? The film will likely defy most audience expectations, so to be helpful, the answer is all of the above, but mostly “c.) relationship drama,” final answer. Eastwood […]

You’d be hard-pressed to think of a film concept  more socially relevant and relatable to 500 million people than a movie about the origins of Facebook. “The Social Network,” however is not some insouciant attempt to capitalize on the world’s most popular social networking site for revenue purposes. It is a loaded drama that unlike […]