Author Archive
Film Review – The Blue Room
A mundane mystery, The Blue Room tries to be more exciting with quick edits and a long wait for the reveal. Julien (Mathieu Amalric), a successful agriculture businessman, is having an affair with the local pharmacist’s wife, Esther (Stéphanie Cléau). When we start, we see…
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Film Review – Rudderless
Director William H. Macy‘s Rudderless has a title that opens itself to a lot of bad jokes: “Never has a title and film’s plot been so in sync,” “This film just flows along’” etc. That aside, there are a lot of things that keep this film moving without…
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Film Review – Hector and the Search for Happiness
Director Peter Chelsom‘s Hector and the Search for Happiness doesn’t do anything special but has a nice message even if getting to that message takes some less interesting detours.
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Film Review – Frank
Frank is probably most easily recognized as the movie where Michael Fassbender wears a fake head throughout the film. My first thought was that this would be the kind of film that either just works based on its weird idea or will just go off…
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Film Review – Finding Fela!
Musical documentaries are quickly becoming the most difficult to review. Music is one of the most subjective things to describe what is good and what is bad. Telling a Megadeth fan that Taylor Swift is an important artist and vice versa is not likely to…
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Film Review – Wish I Was Here
There is a sub-genre that has become a staple of any year: the indie comedy. The comedy movie that, while being funny, deals with some darker issues, has an abundance of quirky-but-realistic characters, and sometimes creates its own offbeat reality that we can fall into.…
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Film Review – The Pleasures of Being Out of Step
Interviews with and about jazz critic and civil rights activist, Nat Hentoff, offer some glimpses of his big moments in music and social justice issues in The Pleasures of Being Out of Step, but are lacking in making a compelling argument of why this is…
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Film Review – Ida
Visually striking, expressively acted, and directed with perfect precision, Ida is pure movie storytelling at its finest. Before seeing this film, I was told about its beautiful cinematography. They did not lie, but also didn’t prepare me for how engaging the shots would be. I cannot…
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