Drama Rated R
"Coincidence can be a heavy burden for a movie…"
An atmospheric account of an affair between a married woman (Julianne Moore) and a novelist (Ralph Fiennes) in World War II London, this adaptation of Graham Greene’s novel has been described as a love triangle involving those two and God, so heavily do religious themes come into play. Indeed, the story seems like little more
Two snipers – a Russian (Jude Law) and a Nazi (Ed Harris) – square off during the World War II battle of Stalingrad, leading to expertly staged action sequences, as well as a mournful acknowledgment of what it means to lie in wait and take a life.
I’m not sure how anyone could dramatize Augusten Burroughs’ experience – his memoir tells how he was abandoned by his unstable mother in the barely functional home of her shrink – and manage to keep the farcical from outweighing the tragic (after all, his new family thought God spoke to them through bowel movements). As
Drama Rated PG-13
What if the most dangerous terrorist training ground circa 2005 was at Guantanomo Bay? That’s the provocative question posed by this based-on-fact political drama, which tells the true story of a harmless, law-abiding South African man who was wrongly accused of terror, imprisoned and tortured by the country’s apartheid government. Upon his release, he channeled
An elliptical meeting of two often-elliptical minds. German filmmaker Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run) directs a script cowritten by the late, great Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski (Blue) about an English teacher in Italy (Cate Blanchett) who becomes a fugitive after bombing an office building which serves as a front for a drug dealer. The result
Drama Rated PG
As a “respectable” picture from bullets-and-babes producer Jerry Bruckheimer (Con Air, Coyote Ugly), this fact-based story about the 1971 integration of a high school football team calculatedly hits all the right notes for a socially conscious drama, but it also contains a strong performance by Denzel Washington and a few moments of feel-good truth. All
A simple fairy tale about tolerance unfolds when the newcomer to a 1959 French village (Juliette Binoche) scandalizes the locals by selling chocolates during Lent. This is the kind of nice, cuddly movie you feel like petting – and Academy members felt like nominating for multiple awards – but it’s not much more than that.
Overcoming an icky concept and title – Goldie Hawn and Susan Sarandon star as former rock groupies who reunite decades later – The Banger Sisters uses genuine humor to explore the ways we deal with our former selves. Both Hawn, as the barmaid still living in the past, and Sarandon, as the uptight suburban mom
Don’t expect to find out what drove the late anarchic comic Andy Kaufman in this biography piece, but thanks to Jim Carrey’s outrageous performance, you can relive the hilarious and baffling experience of watching Kaufman do his stuff. If only more of today’s entertainers were as risky as Kaufman – and Carrey.
