Tim Burton was certainly an imaginative director back when he first started working in features. Kicking off his feature career with Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (which also kick-started Paul Reubens’ screen career and helped launch his TV show Pee-Wee’s Playhouse), an odd but entertaining film about a man-child whose…
Tom Hardy’s dual performance in Legend as real-life identical twin gangster brothers Ronald and Reginald Kray is a remarkable one. The film itself, unfortunately, does not live up to its title. Narrated by Reggie’s wife Francis (Emily Browning), we watch as the Kray brothers rule…
With the crispness of a freshly printed newspaper, Spotlight reflects both the precision in reporting required by the Boston Globe’s Spotlight investigative journalism team as well as the depth of the groundbreaking stories they uncover. In many ways, the film has the feel of diving into the ink of a long-form newspaper…
The elegant romance Carol directed by Todd Haynes premiered at the Cannes Film Festival this year to critical acclaim and already kicked off early Oscar speculations due to high praise for both actresses, including the Award for Best Actress for Rooney Mara for her performance. The Oscar buzz for both Rooney Mara and…
With the release of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 as the fourth and final installment of the dystopian Hunger Games saga, the young adult franchise based on Suzanne Collins’s novels comes to a satisfying end. Jennifer Lawrence reprises her role as the fierce but broken heroine Katniss Everdeen for the…
Childhoods forged in war, rather than peace. Actions predicated on survival, rather than choice. These are the assumptions seen in many films about those who are displaced or consumed by violence, particularly those in West Africa. In Beasts of No Nation, Cary Fukunaga’s third feature film, the specific geography is…
With the arrival of every James Bond comes a wealth of expectation, speculation and anticipation. SPECTRE, however, has the near-impossible task of both following and expanding upon Skyfall, one of the character’s finest filmic adventures to date. Director…
Yet another big commercial hit for actress Bai Baihe, this time directed by Yan Han, Go Away Mr. Tumor is much like its title: a balancing act of comedy and drama and the extremes of each one, as a young woman finds abruptly that she has non-Hodgkin’s…
There are a few constants in Guillermo del Toro films: beautiful set and costume designs, stunning cinematography and colorful characters. There is no denying that the set and costume design in Crimson Peak is breath-taking but unfortunately those are the high points that come from this film. Good news for those that love a good costume drama, bad…
Good-bad movies are a kind of accidental art form. It’s almost impossible to intentionally create a good-bad film; to really work, it’s got to be the result of bad luck, undeserved ego and a complete lack of ability, usually combined with a low budget and pathetically good…