Having been born a touch shy of two decades after the death of Marilyn Monroe, I have only her filmography and Google images to comprehend her beauty and globalizing appeal that radiates from pouting lips, sultry lilting voice, bedroom eyes, and a smile that – despite its documented manufacturing – could make the youngest cynic and oldest […]
The Criterion Collection is a film series that attempts to highlight the best movies ever made. Considering that Armageddon and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button have been included, we shouldn’t exactly hail the collection as the end all, be all of great cinema. But by and large the titles that get marked with the company’s iconic “C” […]
Until Attack the Block came out earlier this year, there was a paucity of British, alien-centric films. Monsters, a 2010 film written and directed by Gareth Edwards, seems to be the best reviewed, but there’s nothing really to gauge it against for the fifty years prior. This is one of the many things that make Paul so […]
Conviction walks the well-worn path of “underprivileged youth cum adult done good,” but does it better than most. From a distance, this Hilary Swank an Sam Rockwell joint directed by Tony Goldwyn might look a bit like The Blind Side, imagining a lone woman standing up for injustice – and in a sense, it is, but the […]
There are many things I love about The Rock. In fact, there are perhaps no things I don’t love about The Rock. In particular, I love the dialogue. “I cannot give that order.” “I am not going to repeat that order.” “I will not give that order.” “What the hell is wrong with you, man.” (Really, the entire […]
Nostalgia drove me to the theater, and part of me was frightened when purchasing tickets, not because I feared being one of a handful of adults in a theater replete with children – much less the only one without his own progeny in tow – but because of what could have happened to The Muppets. Would they […]
The rapper K’naan has a song that begins: “Until the lion learns to speak/the tales of hunting will be weak” It implies an empathic view of history. And a simple one, too. The perspective of the hunted would, of course, be far different than the perspective of the hunter. But what if the lion could speak? What tale […]
Amidst the mishmash of clichés, Limitless is okay, but the first thirty seconds impel the viewer to question “Why do I watch?” as it presents itself as yet another film that begins at the end, with Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper) contemplating whether stepping from the ledge of his upper story balcony is better than facing the forces […]