A mild-mannered but highly-talented unknown artist falls for a charming schemer in Big Eyes. In the early 1950s, Margaret Ulbrich (Amy Adams) found herself in a bad marriage with a young daughter in a world that left her few options. Against common convention, she took matters into her own hands, separating from her husband and moving out […]
A determined reporter for a small-time paper uncovers a shocking government conspiracy that threatens his very existence in Kill the Messenger. While investigating the curious case of a major drug dealer who’s seemingly impervious to prosecution, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb (Jeremy Renner) discovers a CIA connection that leads him ever deeper down a dark, disturbing rabbit hole. […]
A successful big-city defense attorney returns home to help his embattled father in The Judge. Hank Palmer (Robert Downey Jr.) is the kind of defense attorney whom every guilty defendant hopes that he can afford. He knows every nook and cranny of the law and loses no sleep over bending it to his client’s will at every possible […]
A mild-mannered husband copes with his wife’s disappearance and police who are increasingly skeptical of his innocence in Gone Girl. Beloved children’s book author Amy Elliot (Rosamund Pike) could have anyone. She’s bright, beautiful, wealthy and cultured. Into her life comes an unassuming, soft-spoken, but disarmingly suave man named Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck). His puppy dog-like adorableness and […]
Liam Neeson has evolved into one of the most reliable tough guys in motion pictures. His career certainly didn’t start out that way with most of his memorable work taking place in dramas like Rob Roy and Schindler’s List. He convinced me that he could be a badass when he lengthened both his hair and […]
Movies are all about manipulation. Filmmakers have been using tricks to manipulate audiences since the very earliest recorded films that include a train coming directly at the audience and a magician disappearing repeatedly in flashes of smoke. These were simple matters of forced perspective and clever editing, but at the time, the audiences were fooled. […]
A simpleminded barkeep and his streetwise partner struggle to make ends meet in The Drop. Bob (Tom Hardy) spends his nights working at a local bar — Cousin Marv’s — in the heart of Brooklyn. It’s a typical neighborhood bar filled each night with sports fans, passersby and the occasional degenerate. Bob’s partner, Marv (James Gandolfini in his final […]
A resourceful CIA operative is brought out of retirement to protect a valuable witness in The November Man. Peter Devereaux (Pierce Brosnan) was making the most of his retirement from the CIA, living the good life in quiet obscurity and surrounded by the calming beauty of Switzerland. When a critical witness to a major Russian plot […]
The wife of a loathsome real-estate developer is kidnapped by a couple of amateur crooks in Life of Crime. In the late ’70s, Detroit hadn’t yet fallen into the complete disarray it finds itself in today, although it was well on its way. A local housewife at the time, Mickey Dawson (Jennifer Aniston), spends her days […]
I especially love comic books and graphic novels that take chances or push the limits of the medium. Frank Miller’s Sin City graphic novels wowed fans of comics with their art, storytelling and noir style and feel. Those elements carried over to the film adaptation, still one of my favorite comic book ports to date. […]
A German intelligence officer searches for a Chechen immigrant whom he’s certain will lead him to a deeper terrorist network in A Most Wanted Man. The world’s intelligence communities are dominated by both reality and paranoia concerning future potential terrorist actions. Günther Bachmann (Philip Seymour Hoffman) heads up a secret anti-terrorism unit in Hamburg. His main task […]
An eerily detached loner with a singularly obsessive focus chases after the men who ran off with his car in The Rover. In a dystopian Australia, after a devastating economic upheaval, everyone’s left to fend for themselves for their own daily survival. The collapse turns most of the sparse populace into desperate opportunists or outright bandits. Eric […]