remembering the films that the audience forgot
“I didn’t read reviews earlier in my career, but I read them now as I’m older. I read them all.”
— Steven Spielberg
Back in the latter half of the aughts - following the box office failure of a few films - all the talk was about the death of smart, adult fare. How, no one was going to see these movies and studios were going to stop making them. well, I guess George Clooney didn't get the memo, because The Ides Of March is a smart, adult film - and a really good one at that!
Read MoreThis was a film I watched back over a decade ago and the only reason I watched it was because of the director. This was a film I watched back over a decade ago and the only reason I watched it was because of the director. During a typical movie-channels roaming session I came across the film and while the title somewhat rang a bell, it was once I saw, “Directed By Bruce McDonald” that I knew this was going to be my evening viewing.
While the name probably doesn’t mean much to most film goers, Canadian director Bruce McDonald is the film-maker behind a good little film called Roadkill and the director of the 1996 film, Hard Core Logo - which, along with This Is Spinal Tap, is the best fake rockumentary I have ever seen... anyway, back to The Tracy Fragments...
Read MoreThe Secret Life Of Words is about Hannah, a hearing impaired factory worker (Sarah Polley) who is forced to take her first holiday in years and ends up traveling out to an oil rig, where she cares for a man, Josef, suffering from severe burns who is also temporarily blind (Tim Robbins). There are six other people on the rig, which has been shut down due to the accident that led to Josef's injuries.
Read MoreThe film takes place in Buenos Aires in 1999 as retired Argentinian federal justice agent Benjamín Espósito is writing a novel, using an old closed case as the source material. The case happened 25 years ago and it’s one that he has never been able to forget. The film cuts back and forth between present day (1999) and the mid-70s as events unfolded.
Read MoreDarren Aronofsky's The Wrestler is the story of an aging ex-pro wrestler, Randy ‘The Ram', as he works his way through the independent circuit, works in a grocery store and tries to reconnect with the daughter he estranged years ago.
Read MoreMaiquel sees himself as a jobless loser and unattractive to the point where he has always hated looking at himself in the mirror. But when he loses a soccer bet and has to dye his hair blonde, everything changes. He feels like a different person. Which gives him the balls to ask out the hot girl that did his dye job - but it also leads his life down a very violent path.
Read MoreIn 1995, at the age of 43, Jean-Dominique Bauby (Jean-Do) had a debilitating stroke that left him completely paralyzed except for his left eye. Over the course of the next two years he used that left eye to blink out his memoir, The Diving Bell And The Butterfly - taking us into the head and dreams and memories of a man 'locked-in'. That book is, obviously, the basis of the similarly titled film from director Julian Schnabel.
Read MoreThe first thing that struck me during - but more so after - watching The Notorious Bettie Page, was how the film didn't feel like a typical bio pic. Now, to be honest, I'm not sure why that is, but I have a few ideas.
Read MoreThe Wackness: The year is 1994 and our hero, Luke Shapiro, has just graduated from high school. He isn't one of the cool kids (he might be the most popular of the unpopular kids or the least popular of the popular ones), but they all know him because he’s their pot dealer. He also deals to this psychiatrist who happens to be the step dad of this chick he has a huge crush on...
Read MoreBob Hoskins plays, Harold Shand, the big boss man of the London underworld, who is about to close a very lucrative deal with an American crime family that will be worth billions in years to come. However, that is when things start to blow up around him and some of those close to him are killed. Why? Who? How? Are all questions that Harold asks and is determined to find out before it leads to the end of his deal.
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