I am sitting here as a nor'easter wails outside, thinking about WINTER'S TALE and how cold it left me. It's also not going to do much for the ravishing young actress whose character "Lady Sybil" was killed off in DOWNTOWN ABBEY--Jessica Brown Findlay. Her career will remain in the deep freeze until a better movie [...]
Look. I love the arts. And this is a FANTASTIC a story about rescuing artistic masterpieces from Nazis and returning them to their owners-- I mean, what could be better than that?!! Well, having seen THE MONUMENTS MEN-- just about anything. This is one of those hidden chapters of World War II that begs to [...]
The race is ON! Chris "Thor" Hemsworth helped hammer home the 86th Oscar nominations with Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs and the results are pretty much as I expected: AMERICAN HUSTLE and GRAVITY tied for most nominations--10 each, followed by 12 YEARS A SLAVE with 9! What I'm delighted about? Matthew McConaughey. It's his year [...]
I stumbled out of this film in a daze of horrified relief. The Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Tracy Letts, now a movie starring Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts, describes one of the most dysfunctional sagas in the annals of dysfunctional family sagas. It is not the bleak, claustrophobic womb of madness and despair that is [...]
No matter what anyone tells you, AMERICAN HUSTLE is one of THE best movies of the year. And it was shot in Boston (standing in for New Jersey)-- so it was a kick to see the gilded Wang Theater lobby and environs decked out as a swank gambling hall for one of the film's climactic [...]
I thought my eyes would pop out of my head! The WOLF OF WALL STREET left me howling, jaw on the floor, more than once. This fantastically over the top, true story of 8o's-style greed from Martin Scorsese, plays like CALIGULA on Wall Street, laced with "coke, testosterone, and bodily fluids." Leonardo DiCaprio grabs and [...]
12 YEARS A SLAVE tops the list of Boston Society of Film Critics Awards with three awards including Best Picture of 2013, Best Director-- Steve McQueen, and Best Actor-- Chiwetel Ejiofor for his role as Solomon Northup in this true story of a free black man kidnapped and sold into slavery. Seventeen of the 21 [...]
I like THE HUNGER GAMES: series, and the second installment, CATCHING FIRE--despite a colleague's calling it "a long slog"--absolutely held me. Once again, the charismatic Jennifer Lawrence as the reluctant firebrand Katniss Everdeen continues to rebel against the capitol. Having out-witted the powers that be in the first Hunger Games--a TV spectacle in which children [...]
BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR has certainly heated up the conversation about women, sex on film, and madmen directors. Since the NC-17 rated movie along with its leading ladies (a first!) won the Palme d'Or the highest honor at this year's Cannes Film Festival, arguments have erupted, accusations have been hurled, and tears have been [...]
THE BROKEN CIRCLE BREAKDOWN opens on a tight shot of a group of down-home, country bluegrass musicians performing "Will the Circle Be Unbroken." They may be "down home"--but not in the country you think. Though their English sounds flawless, they are actually Flemish musicians in Ghent 2006. And that American country classic they're singing? It's [...]
