[7] Paul Muni stars as Emile Zola, the famous French author whose critical writings brought the scorn of the French government, especially when he came out in support of a wrongfully-condemned army officer. The first half of this film, directed by William Dieterle (The Devil and Daniel Webster), offers a high level overview of Zola’s penniless beginnings and his breakthrough success with the novel Nana. …
[6] Liam James stars as a shy fourteen-year-old forced to suffer summer vacation with his freshly-divorced mother (Toni Collette) and her nasty boyfriend (Steve Carell). While he waits for his mother to grow a pair and throw the bum out, the boy finds solace at a nearby water park where the bohemian manager (Sam Rockwell) gives him the confidence to come out of his shell. …
[5] The second feature film from Paul Verhoeven (RoboCop, Basic Instinct) plays a lot like a Dutch version of Love Story. Rutger Hauer and Monique van de Ven star as the young lovers, whose relationship is founded completely on carnal desire. We learn in the wrap-around story that Hauer’s character is having difficulty moving on with his life after the end of the affair — …
[7] Jamie Foxx stars as an L.A. cab driver forced to chauffeur a hitman played by Tom Cruise. Director Michael Mann (Heat, Last of the Mohicans) works from a solid script by Stuart Beattie that balances action and suspense with plenty of great character moments. The film builds nicely, with Foxx’s character instigating a few surprising turns of events. Cruise’s character is the icy, heartless …
[7] Julianne Moore stars in this true story based on the life of Evelyn Ryan, a ’50s housewife and mother of ten who kept her family afloat by writing award-winning marketing jingles. Director Jane Anderson manages to keep the movie light and airy, which keeps in tone with Evelyn’s indomitable spirit, but without short shrifting the film’s more serious, underlying statements about gender roles. Both …
[8] Robert Sean Leonard, Christian Bale, and Frank Whaley play tight-knit German teenagers rebelling against the growing Nazi party by embracing a counter culture of long hair and banned U.S. swing music. But as each of the boys is pressured into joining Hitler’s Youth organization, difficult and deadly decisions are made. Swing Kids is surprisingly dark for a film hiding under a Disney-esque veneer. And …
[3] Mel Gibson plays a drug dealer trying to come clean. Kurt Russell plays a cop assigned to bring Mel down. Trouble is, they’re kinda friends. And now they’re both sort of in love with the same woman, a restaurant owner played by Michelle Pfeiffer. All three leading actors are beautiful to look at, especially in Conrad Hall’s Oscar-nominated cinematography. But writer/director Robert Towne’s script …
[8] Writer/director Bill Condon (Gods and Monsters) takes on the life and work of sexual research pioneer Alfred Kinsey, whose teachings and publications caused a national uproar in the late ’40s and 50s. If you think America is sexually prudish and repressed now, try to imagine what it was like back in Kinsey’s day, with most people constantly wondering, “Am I normal?” Before the work …
[6] In the world of shady post-9/11 politics, an innocent man (Omar Metwally) is seized by the CIA and tortured in a foreign country while his wife (Reese Witherspoon) and a doubtful CIA analyst (Jake Gyllenhaal) work on opposite sides of the world to help him. Rendition is a solid drama/thriller from Gavin Hood (Tsotsi, Ender’s Game), who refrains from sensationalizing any violence or indulging …
[5] Bette Davis stars as a woman who marries a banker (Claude Rains) to protect her brother from embezzlement charges. Claude Rains’ character knows full well that she’s marrying him for his money, but hopes that in time she’ll grow to love him. Well… she doesn’t. Bette Davis is a cold-hearted bitch in this movie, so all your sympathy goes to the long-suffering Rains, whose …
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