The term “The Ides of March” refers, in modern parlance, to an impending doom. It’s most common use is in the William Shakespeare play Julius Caesar who recounts a seer warning Caesar in advance of his assassination to “beware the Ides of March.” In that case it was simply a reference to the middle of […]
I don’t know anyone that wouldn’t pause for a moment to ask, “Do I really want to see a movie that’s supposed to be a comedy about cancer?” It’s just something that—like bacon and ice cream—shouldn’t be mixed—or so one might think. 50/50 is a film written by Will Reiser, a young comedy writer who […]
Back in 1985, long before fantasy baseball had become popular, I got involved in one of its ancestral forms and that experience exposed me to the importance of seeing baseball as a statistical entity requiring a different type of analysis. It also exposed me to the wonders of Bill James and his approach called Sabermetrics. […]
Way back in China’s history judges were the investigators of the day and during the Tang Dynasty there lived a noteworthy magistrate by the name of Di Renji. In the 1940’s an international author wrote a series of mystery novels loosely based on the judge now re-christened Judge Dee. Today we have a new film based on […]
This weekend I caught a foreign film called Circumstance. It’s the story of two Iranian teenagers who find themselves completely devoted to each other in a country that not only looks down upon lesbian lifestyles but women in general. As you can imagine their path to happiness is beyond rocky. The previews for this film […]
Another weekend seeing two films. This one was the Paul Rudd vehicle Our Idiot Brother. The definition of “comedy” is recorded as: “Professional entertainment consisting of jokes and satirical sketches, intended to make an audience laugh.” Using that as a basis for this movie I’d have to say its got major issues. Here we get Rudd as the […]
In what seems to amount to a rare situation this year I managed to catch two films this holiday weekend. I’ve had countless barriers this year to catching more films but the most striking one has been that I just haven’t felt very interested in much of what’s been put forth so far and with […]
A pure sense of hope against a world filled with callous motivations.
Apparently from what I’ve heard Water for Elephants is a much-beloved novel that I’m guessing Oprah recommended based on all the women in the theater the day I saw it. Obviously I never read the book but the movie was certainly quite entertaining. I went into it a bit skeptical as circus movies tend to […]
Okay, I got a little behind on some movie reviews so I need to get to these before they’re totally irrelevant. I’ll post them individually just in case I get side-tracked. I caught Jane Eyre. Here’s a classic work of literature that’s been told several times in various forms and I’ve managed to miss them […]
First I need to point out that I never read the book. Second, the theater I saw this at never mentioned it was Part I, of a trilogy no less. Lord of the Rings this isn’t. The film, from an incredibly dense novel from Ayn Rand, revolves around the trials and tribulations of a pair […]
A suburban South Korean grandmother grows fascinated with poetic prose in Poetry. The film comes with lots of adulation and pedigree. It was an official selection at several film festivals and the reviews were about as stellar as they get. In fact, as I write this it’s got a perfect 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes. I’ve spoken […]