Based on factual events, it unfolds during World War II in the Polish town of Lvov, now part of Ukraine. Mass executions in the Warsaw Ghetto have driven about a dozen Jewish Poles to escape the Nazis by fleeing into the sewer system. They hide in the dank, dark confines of the underground, sharing their […]
drama
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Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Kid Jeopardy! champ Thomas Horn carries the drama as best as he can, playing Oskar Schell, the 9-year-old only child of a jeweler (Tom Hanks) and his cubicle wife (Sandra Bullock). Oskar has Asperger syndrome, or close enough, so his father keeps him entertained and engaged with all sorts of elaborate games and activities, the […]
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The Descendants
An attorney, Matt’s laid-back life is hit with a metaphorical tsunami — not once, but twice — when his wife (Patricia Hastie) is thrown from a boat and into a vegetative state. The news from doctors that she’s not expected to recover is worsened by the accidental revelation that she was invested deeply in an […]
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Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life / Telstar: The Joe Meek Story
Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life follows the controversial French singer and songwriter starting in childhood, where his big ears and Jewish genes don’t make for an easy upbringing in Nazi-occupied Paris. The kid hates piano lessons, preferring drawing sophisticated cartoons (some dirty) to music, unless the song is a ditty about cocaine. Those quirks work for […]
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Game Change
If Sen. McCain’s choice of the largely unknown Alaska Gov. Palin as his veep choice seemed out of nowhere then, there’s good reason: Because it pretty much was. McCain, here played by Ed Harris (Man on a Ledge), wanted Sen. Joe Lieberman, but was talked into someone “more transformative” by hired gun Steven Schmidt (Woody […]
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Rampart
As one character states boldly to his face, “You’re a classic racist. A bigot. A sexist. A womanizer. A chauvinist. A misanthrope. Homophobic, clearly, or maybe you just don’t like yourself.” Mind you, this is just from his daughter, so imagine what those with no emotional investment to cop David Brown would think. Or just […]
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A Separation
Some of the most exciting and challenging films in the world these days are coming from Iran, so it’s no surprise that A Separation, a tense and absorbing domestic drama packed with the suspense of a Hitchcock flick, recently earned the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Opening Friday at AMC Quail Springs Mall […]
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Martha Marcy May Marlene
Writer/director Sean Durkin’s unsettling “Martha Marcy May Marlene,” now available on Blu-ray and DVD, explores the dark side of that need for human connection: the giving up of identity and individual will to be included. Those offering that extreme Faustian bargain are most often men, and quite often power-hungry to the point of psychosis: Jim […]
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Ocean Heaven / 1911
Namely, your body starts to fail you. No longer are you as quick, nimble and flexible as in your prime. What’s an action hero to do? If you’re Jackie Chan and Jet Li — age 57 and 48, respectively — you start turning more and more to dramas. Coincidentally (or not), both martial-arts superstars have […]
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Elite Squad: The Enemy Within
It should have. Had I seen it before now, it handily would have made my list of 2011’s top 10 films. It matters not that “Elite Squad: The Enemy Within” is a sequel to a 2007 film I’m not certain I knew existed; director/co-writer José Padilha’s work is powerful and extraordinary on its own. The […]