The most successful world heavyweight boxing champion of all time faces his biggest challenger — the United States government — in the HBO film Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight. In late February of 1964, a brash and recently unimpressive young boxer predicted — quite emphatically — that he was going to not only beat the current rock of a heavyweight champion, Sonny […]
An inquisitive high school junior struggles to find her own sexual identity in Blue is the Warmest Color. Our high school years are rife with lessons to be learned. The biggest, of course, are those learned outside the classroom, and those often include the most vexing challenges of our lives to that point. For those […]
Every year brings at least one new coming-of-age story. My favorite from this year is The Way, Way Back. Plots about sexual awakening are perhaps rarer, and when they do appear, they usually focus on a male’s perspective. It’s a challenge to successfully combine the two types of films in a single experience and center […]
A young boy is chosen to be a top military strategist in a battle to save the future of Earth from the onslaught of an alien race in Ender’s Game. Orson Scott Card‘s beloved sci-fi best seller is brought to the big screen for the first time. It’s the story of young Ender Wiggin (Asa […]
An awkward, socially inept 21-year-old finds out that every man in his family has an incredible special ability and sets out to make the most of it in About Time. Here we meet Tim (Domhnall Gleeson aka Bill Weasley in the Harry Potter films) who, upon turning 21, is told by his father (Bill Nighy) the extraordinary […]
In the wonderfully touching 1988 film Cinema Paradiso, the aged projectionist Alfredo laments, “Progress always comes late.” In context, he’s speaking about noncombustible film that’s just come to market too late to have helped in a major fire he barely survived. Today, many wonder if the same isn’t true for current movie theaters and all […]
Slavery has been addressed by so many movies and television shows over the years. Many of those stories have their origin in books, as in Roots, while others are entirely fictional and original, as in the recent Django Unchained. It’s rare for a seemingly new story to be unearthed and adapted into a movie. Such […]
A free black man from New York is kidnapped and sold into slavery in 12 Years a Slave. Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), an avid violinist, is living with his wife and young children in 1841 when he’s offered a compelling musical opportunity in Washington, DC. Eager for any chance to better their position in life, […]
A crass old man in his mid-80s travels the countryside with his young grandson in tow, tormenting and shocking everyone they meet in the new hidden-camera reality movie Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa. Irving Zisman (Johnny Knoxville) is the quintessential dirty old man. He’s sleazy, horny, crude, rude and, as it turns out, screwed. His drug-addicted […]
A senior yachtsman, sailing solo across an unforgiving ocean, comes face to face with his own mortality when trouble strikes his lonely boat in All Is Lost. Robert Redford plays an unnamed solo seafarer who pilots a 39-foot yacht across the Indian Ocean. He awakens one morning to find the ship damaged by a collision […]
Remakes of classic films are usually not worth the price of admission. I am constantly annoyed about how rampant unoriginality is in Hollywood. Why create something new and exciting when there are decades of movies to remake or reinterpret? That attitude has produced a litany of bad remakes. Carrie does not quite qualify as that […]
A shy teen struggles with callous classmates and an overprotective mother until she taps into a unique — but dangerous — ability in Carrie. This is a remake of the classic 1976 horror film based on Stephen King‘s best-selling book of the same name. The story centers on social misfit Carrie White (Chloë Grace Moretz), who […]