DEAD MAN’S WIRE
If you lived in or around Indianapolis in the late 1970s you probably know the real story that inspired this film, but it was new to me. The versatile Bill Skarsgård plays a man who has grown so furious…
SONG SUNG BLUE
I didn’t know what to expect from a movie about a man and woman who perform as a Neil Diamond tribute band…but I found myself falling in love with Song Sung Blue. Cheers to writer-director Craig Brewer for recognizing the potential…
THE CHORAL
Ralph Fiennes is always worth watching, and he heads the cast of The Choral, an absorbing drama directed by the eminent Nicholas Hytner and written by the last living member of Beyond the Fringe, Alan Bennett. Their previous collaborations on stage and screen brought us The Madness of King George and…
AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH
Any filmmaker who asks a moviegoer to sit still for more than three hours had better have a really good reason. James Cameron does not. I lost an afternoon to the latest AVATAR movie and I can’t get it…
TRAIN DREAMS
If there is a lovelier, more heartfelt film than Train Dreams now playing in theaters I have yet to see it. The protagonist is a wide-eyed innocent, an unworldly loner who venerates the gifts of Mother Nature, as well…
NUREMBERG
Nuremberg is not a documentary, nor is it a remake of Stanley Kramer’s 1961 Oscar winner Judgment at Nuremberg. It is contemporary in its dialogue and editing style, as if to proclaim right up front that this is not…
GUILLERMO DEL TORO’S FRANKENSTEIN
This is the movie Guillermo del Toro was born to make. He first read Mary Shelley’s novel as a boy and it has informed everything he has done since then. Del Toro admits that he only started working on…
