Wednesday 22 May
 
 

Dexter: The Seventh Season

There's no way to discuss the seventh and penultimate season of Showtime's hit Dexter without acknowledging how the previous year ended. Therefore, if you haven't finished the sixth season, stop reading now. You've got work to do.
05/21/2013 | Comments 0

Nightfall

As Simon Lam gets older, he gets better. The veteran actor has appeared in such in seminal HK action films of the 1990s as Once Upon a Time in China (opposite Jet Li) and Bullet in the Head (directed by John Woo); in the aughts, he graced audience and critical favorites Election and Ip Man.
05/20/2013 | Comments 0

Grand Duel

Lee Van Cleef enjoyed a secondary career in Italy cranking out spaghetti Westerns, with little regard to quality. However, 1972’s Grand Duel — aka The Big Showdown — is deserving of its Grand label. No wonder Quentin Tarantino borrowed its sweeping theme song by Luis Bacalov for Kill Bill; you'll recognize it in two notes.
05/20/2013 | Comments 0

The Last Stand

Early in The Last Stand, the small-town sheriff played by Arnold Schwarzenegger says, "It's my day off. Should be a quiet weekend." That's the new way of saying, "I've got one week to retirement," because it signals — with flashing neon and everything — that life is going to royally upend those plans.
05/17/2013 | Comments 0

Texas Chainsaw

One of the most inconsistent franchises in movie history is the one beget by Tobe Hooper's 1974 classic, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. How does one follow all those less-than-beloved sequels? Lionsgate's latest in the series — the seventh — has a solution: Ignore 'em.
05/17/2013 | Comments 0
Home · Articles · Movies · Drama
Drama
 

Meek’s Cutoff

A movie about deadly tedium that is nearly a work of deadly tedium itself


Drama

Phil Bacharach
Lest anyone thinks otherwise, wandering the Oregon Trail in 1845 was no walk in the park.
 
Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Winter in Wartime

A tense, if not intense, drama-cum-thriller


Drama

Rod Lott
Like 2008’s “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas,” the Dutch-born film “Winter in Wartime” is set in World War II, and explores what happens when a youth gets involved with the other side of the fence — here, figuratively.
 
Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Of Gods and Men

Monks spar with terrorists in this fact-based drama


Drama

Rod Lott
One new-to-the-metro film portrays a community so minute, so insular and so far removed from ours, it may as well be science fiction.
 
Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Samson and Delilah / Of Gods and Men

Set in impoverished communities, the dramas ‘Samson & Delilah’ and ‘Of Gods and Men’ deal with issues of faith and forced exits.


Drama

Rod Lott
Two new films portray communities so minute, so insular and so far removed from ours, they may as well be science fiction.
 
Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Jane Eyre

A good adaptation of one of world literature’s essential novels


Drama

Doug Bentin
Perhaps the reason so many adult women became enthralled by the romance of Edward Cullen and Bella Swan is because they never read “Jane Eyre,” which could reasonably be called “Twilight” for grown-ups.
 
Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Win Win

A tale of desperate measures in financially desperate times


Drama

Phil Bacharach
In “The Station Agent” and “The Visitor,” writer/director Thomas McCarthy explored the dynamics of family, but not in the conventional sense.
 
Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Trust

A cautionary tale with too much melodrama


Drama

Rod Lott
When your tween daughter asks why she can’t have a Facebook account or a MySpace page, take her to see “Trust.”
 
Wednesday, March 30, 2011

The Lincoln Lawyer

Perhaps plotting a course for reinvention, Matthew McConaughey drives ‘The Lincoln Lawyer,’ a solid legal thriller.


Drama

Doug Bentin
Ever since the glory days of “Perry Mason,” I’ve been a sucker for stories about slick lawyers who live along the thin line of professional ethics, sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other.
 
Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Dogtooth

Remarkable.


Drama

Doug Bentin
In “Dogtooth,” a remarkable, absurdist dark comedy from Greece, the meaning of every plot turn and character is up for grabs.
 
Wednesday, February 16, 2011

The Illusionist

Nice trick


Drama

Rod Lott
If I could play God, when the Best Animated Feature envelope is torn open at next month’s Oscars, the winner wouldn’t be the presumed lock of “Toy Story 3,” but the dark horse, “The Illusionist.”
 
Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Blue Valentine

Hefty dramatic worth and impressive acting


Drama

Rod Lott
While long impressive on the big screen, from “The Station Agent” to “Brokeback Mountain,” Michelle Williams does her best work yet in “Blue Valentine,” the fractured love story that has earned her a well-deserved Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.
 
Friday, February 4, 2011

Another Year

Strong acting and little story transform Mike Leigh’s film into a poignant slice of life.


Drama

Phil Bacharach
Nothing much happens in Mike Leigh films, at least not in the strictest sense of Plot Mechanics 101. There are no car chases or explosions, not even a juicy epiphany in the final reel.
 
Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Tiny Furniture

You’ll have a good time watching Lena Dunham have a hard time in her brainy, but buoyant film


Drama

Rod Lott

Warning: Those allergic to quirkiness may be sent into fits of anaphylactic shock by the DIY indie “Tiny Furniture,” but the immune among us will find something of a rough gem. The microbudget dramedy plays Friday through Sunday at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art.

 
Wednesday, January 26, 2011

I Love You Phillip Morris

Those prone to admiring Jim Carrey may like ‘I Love You Phillip Morris,’ a crime story too good to be true ... yet it is.


Drama

Rod Lott
During one of his multitudinous incarcerations in Texas, slick con man Steven Russell (Jim Carrey, “A Christmas Carol”) meets a pointless little felon named Phillip Morris (Ewan McGregor, “The Ghost Writer”) who instantly becomes the love of his life.
 
Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Idiots & Angels

Clipped wings


Drama

Rod Lott
Animator Bill Plympton’s “Idiots & Angels” is not what you’d think, for several reasons.
 
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
 
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