Rainn Wilson walks a well-tread path as Frank D’Arbo, a man so uncomfortable in his skin that he creates an alter ego, The Crimson Bolt, to justify his existence and add to the “two perfect moments” in his pitiful life. One is his marriage to Sarah (Liv Tyler), a former alcoholic drug addict who has recently fallen […]
In one sense, Dirty Girl could be seen as a pro-abstinence tale. Danielle (Juno Temple) is an anachronistic high school girl whose daily routine is less occupied with academics and more focused on designating her sexual pray, humping them in car, and then dumping them on the way to her next conquest. Because of these actions, and […]
Like any John Hughes film, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles includes a handful of life lessons: Neal Page (Steve Martin) learns that family is more important than success, and, sometimes, going with the flow like his counterpart Del Griffith (John Candy) brings more joy to life than running a perpetual race with a bunch of uptight suits trying […]
In one sense, Bridesmaids is a refreshing film that moves the lens from perpetually adolescent man defying the onset of adulthood found in any recent cinema affiliated with Judd Apatow to the perpetually adolescent woman facing the same fate. At the same time, it’s plot is tired and, amidst a few poignant moments at the end between […]
If nothing else, Hugo is a departure from the characteristic Martin Scorsese film. George Melies (Ben Kingsley) is not whacked by a bullet in the back of the head. The Station Inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen) does not pass out from smoking too much pot and forget to get rid of the getaway truck. No one is insulted […]
Undefeated chronicles the 2009 season of the Manassas Tigers, a high school football team in North Memphis – also known as the perennial whipping boys for the rest of the state. Facing a fourteen-year losing streak, the team is taken over Bill Courtney, a volunteer head coach / lumber salesman in his quest to lead them to […]
Mar07
Welcome to Nowhere (Bullet Hole Road) — A Savage Journey into the Heart of the American Road Movie
Characteristically, the road movie is a catharsis played out on the big screen. Mounting frustrations of quotidian, pedestrian existences crescendo into a need to break away from all that is familiar. At the same time, the road movie is a contradiction as characters escape the familiar by utilizing the uber-familiar and search for the unknown by means […]
Beginning in 2008, frugality became the new luxury. The bling that was in a few years prior became excessive and the winnowing of credit card debt became the fashion of the moment. People began going green less out of compassion for the environment, and more of a means to limit their electric and gas bills. As we […]
In a number of portrayals of women passing as men, gender-bending is a method of establishing an identity. In Albert Nobbs, the diminutive, soft-spoken, ginger-haired Irish hotel butler (Glenn Close) becomes a man, in part to escape the brutality of men in a previous relationship, but more for anonymity. Albert makes few social statements through her disguise; rather, […]
It’s believed that thousands of people live below the streets of New York City, inhabiting the shoulders and gullies of the labyrinthine subway. Those pounding the pavement to and from work each day may wonder what impels these denizens to navigate dark, dirty tunnels in lieu of facing the myriad bodies and bills that await them above. […]