The enigmatic college dropout rises to become one of the most respected (and feared) business leaders in history in Jobs. Steve Jobs (Ashton Kutcher) was a force from his earliest days. Never one to play to social norms, Jobs moved to the beat of his own internal drummer. He had the gift for visionary thinking […]
A poor black child from the deep South overcomes incredible odds to become a White House butler and bears witness to some of the greatest strides (and setbacks) of the civil rights movement in Lee Daniels’ The Butler. Cecil Gaines (Forest Whitaker) was raised on a cotton plantation in Georgia during the early 1900s. He […]
A streetwise, charismatic teen unintentionally falls for a good-hearted, introverted girl who teaches him a thing or two about young love in The Spectacular Now. John Lennon‘s solo hit, “Beautiful Boy,” includes the lyric, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” Those words perfectly encapsulate the overriding theme of the latest romantic […]
A frustrated tech employee wants his shot at the big time and gets his chance — and all that comes with it — in Paranoia. Adam Cassidy (Liam Hemsworth) works for one of the biggest mobile companies in the world. The problem is that he’s not content to slowly work his way to the top, hoping against […]
When I think of paranoia, I imagine a nagging feeling that someone is watching me or that something is going to happen or go wrong. You would think that the title Paranoia would lead to a film with someone who’s out of control mentally and afraid of something. Well, that’s not the case with this […]
Woody Allen‘s latest film bounces between New York and San Francisco as it follows a one-time wealthy socialite who has to come to terms with her new, less fortunate, reality in Blue Jasmine. Jasmine French (Cate Blanchett), is an invented name as fake as the person who created it. Jasmine has always seen herself above […]
On a devastated futuristic Earth, an ordinary man’s dream to cross the literal divide between classes comes to the forefront in Elysium. Matt Damon stars as the ordinary man, Max Da Costa, who grew up in the early 22nd century on an Earth that’s overpopulated, unhealthy and dangerous. It’s so bad that the richest populace […]
A group of friends and a local hippie they pick up along the way search for the ultimate high and some meaning in their lives in Crystal Fairy. There are great films. There are lousy films, and then there are films that remind me why I felt I had something to contribute to the glut […]
A young, troubled father, struggling to finally put his life back together, is tragically killed by transit police in the true story of Fruitvale Station. Oscar Grant (Michael B. Jordan) was returning from a night out with friends, enjoying San Francisco’s New Year’s Eve festivities for 2009. A fight broke out on the train that […]
I was 14 years old in the summer of 1981 following my freshman year in high school. I had started to discover who I am and had already established my interest in computers and programming courtesy of the terminals we used to connect to a university’s mainframe computer via a telephone line. I went to […]
Rarely do I wish that a rumored casting decision favored the other person than the actor in the finished production. The Indiana Jones films would be quite different if Tom Selleck had put on the famous fedora. Even worse, Eric Stoltz was on his way to assuming the role of Marty McFly in the Back […]
A struggling 14 year-old finds solace and support at a local water park in the coming-of-age film The Way, Way Back. In the 1979 film Meatballs, Bill Murray‘s character (a camp counselor) says to a new arrival, “You must be the short depressed kid we ordered.” That film was another coming-of-age story involving another disconnected […]