A picture as intelligent and sophisticated as the offbeat new drama I Origins is a rarity in American movies, but given that this one was written and directed by Mike Cahill, who gave us 2011’s similarly thoughtful Another Earth, it’s no surprise. But his…
Read MoreGabriel Iglesias just may be the first celeb I’ve seriously drank with, if you can count knocking back a couple in a suite at Chicago’s James Hotel, ground zero for the star’s junket to promote this weekend’s opener and Iglesias’ stand-up concert film, The…
Read MoreEvery Year I Live, I Know Less About Love: Paul Haggis on Third Person’s Investigation into the Heart of an Artist
Paul Haggis, the Oscar-winning writer and director who penned Million Dollar Baby and directed his own screenplay for Crash (movies that won consecutive Best Picture Oscars in 2005 and 2006), has maintained a lower profile in the last few years. And while his success…
Read MoreTye Sheridan Comes of Age in David Gordon Green’s Joe, a Story of Hard Won Maturity in an Unforgiving South
In three films—Tree of Life, Mud and now Joe—seventeen-year-old actor Tye Sheridan has carved out a niche as a rural teen that experiences lost innocence and disillusionment about the world by close examinations of his adult role models. Remarkably sensitive and without posture, Sheridan…
Read MoreBigger, Badder and Better, Gareth Evans and Iko Uwais on The Raid 2’s Astonishing Action, Complex Character and 2014’s Most Entertaining Film
The Raid 2: Berandal (meaning thug), is quite an accomplished movie, and one that took me by complete surprise. If you saw 2012’s The Raid, the scrappy story of two Jakarta SWAT cops who took down a cabal of drug pushers holed up in…
Read MoreJuliette, Julianne, Margo and Tracy — In August: Osage County, the Year’s Best Ensemble Tackles Unhealed Family Wounds, Secrets
You won’t find a better acting ensemble this year than the sprawling cast of August: Osage County, the new film adaptation of Tracy Letts’ celebrated, Pulitzer Prize-winning play, about an extended—and highly dysfunctional—southern family reuniting on the Oklahoma plains after the patriarch’s death. This…
Read MoreNot unlike his title character in Inside Llewyn Davis, the Coen Brothers’ ode to a down-on-his-luck folk guitarist in 1961 Greenwich Village struggling to make a go of it, actor Oscar Isaac has spent years doing solid supporting work in movies, looking for his…
Read MoreFaith, Dignity and Philomena: Actor and Screenwriter Steve Coogan Delivers Powerful Examination of Trespasses, Forgiveness
British actor and comedian Steve Coogan, the quick-witted, prolific star of such notable comedies as 24 Hour Party People, Tropic Thunder, In The Loop, The Trip and scores of other memorable works including his BAFTA-winning, media-lampooning signature character Alan Partridge, has entered a new…
Read MoreRise of the Third Reich, Fall of Innocence: Geoffrey Rush, Sophie Nélisse and Brian Percival on The Book Thief
Geoffrey Rush and Sophie Nélisse play a small-town, working-class German father and adopted daughter on the eve of World War II in The Book Thief, based on the popular best-selling novel by Markus Zusak and featuring lovely performances from the pair, and Emily Watson…
Read MoreLegendary Horror Master Dario Argento’s Dark Fantasies Fuel Five Decades of Classic Chillers, Including New Dracula 3D
It would be impossible to overstate the impact legendary filmmaker Dario Argento has had on the horror genre with landmark shockers including 1970’s The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, 1975’s Profundo Rosso (Deep Red) and 1978’s Suspiria, as well as a revered canon of…
Read More