Top 10 Lead Performances of 2014
An outstanding year for film usually means an outstanding one for performances as well. First up are the lead roles that acted as our surrogates through many diverse and engaging narratives. From recovering depressives to…
The Top 20 Movies of 2014
2014 has come and gone, another year in books, so as is movie reviewer tradition it is time to come up with a listing of the very best films that I saw in the past…
Foxcatcher Review
There is the scene in the trailer for Bennet Miller’s unbearably tense olympic wrestling docu-drama where multi-millionaire John du Pont (Steve Carell) walks into the training room with his sponsored wrestlers training together, and in…
Selma Review
Now, here’s the way to make a truly resonating Bio-pic, the type of ‘Prestige Drama’ that gets it. At the risk of going into spoiler territory I want to examine a scene late in Ava…
Inherent Vice Review
The very best movies of this recent past year concerned themselves with depicting life in the present; living in the here and now, whenever that “here and now” was. From the 60’s Poland to the…
Film
The Top 60 Movie Moments That Defined The 60’s: Part 1
There are very few consecutive modern decades that share as little in common as the 50’s slowly transformed into the 60’s, going…
Movie Reviews
Nightcrawler Review
Making it in America: for the ‘if it bleeds; it leads’ crowd, AKA the current American media cycles. A satirical indictment of…
Top Tens
My Ten Favorite Roger Ebert Movie Reviews
Today marks what would’ve been the late great influential film critic Roger Ebert’s 72nd birthday, and though he died just last year…
The Top 10 Performances By Animated Characters
Upon being so taken after seeing Hayao Miyazaki’s The Wind…
The Top 50 Movie Moments That Defined the 1950’s: Top Ten
Before getting into the top ten here are the pervious…
More Articles
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) Review
“A thing is a thing, not what is said of the thing” “There are no second acts in American lives” For those paying very close attention to the frequently used tags word cloud on the right-hand side of my site, one will notice the ones…
T.V Show Review: Manhattan S1
It is an interesting coincidence that I referenced the Manhattan Project earlier this year in my The Wind Rises review and especially highlighted the quote: “I have become death; destroyer of worlds.” Because for the characters on the new outstanding WGN historical dramatic series J.R Oppenheimer’s eventual quote…
Gone Girl Review
There is the religious platitude that anyone associated with law is supposed to adhere to and impart: that “the truth will set you free”, but what is rarely mentioned is just how suffocating, bleak and painful the ‘Truth’ can be until it does, if ever.…
The Drop Review
It’s always amazing to observe the temporal reductive power of film, what a film has to do while unfolding its story. A movie that spends a little over a month with characters in under two hours must still feel like we have gotten to know…
Scenery Theory: Visual Imprinting In The 25th Hour
25th Hour is one of my favorite films of all-time and Barry Pepper is one of my favorite character actors working out there today, and the scene that showcases exactly why is encapsulated in Spike Lee’s important, resonating and masterful 25th Hour one of the very finest…
Mood Indigo Review
I’m back with a vengeance. Well, where to begin with this one? How about I begin by getting it out of the way, I’m not a fan of this one. There is an old adage that for a movie to succeed you need three great…
Young and Beautiful Review
For those of you who thought Nymphomaniac was not sexually liberal enough. Leave it to the French to make a story of an underage prostitute tasteful and endearing. Meet Isabelle, a precocious, spoiled, detached, rebellious and beautiful french teenager blossoming on verge of adulthood. While vacationing…
Scenery Theory: The Waiting Game in War
What is the most insidious thing that war can take away from those that survive and return home? My Grandfather never really talked about his experiences as a Tank Destroyer Division Major in WWII; a few stories here and there from other men in his…
Beyond the Laughter: “Your move chief”
I don’t talk about many comedies on this site, I don’t refer to many comedic talents in my writings, it’s just the kind of movies and media that I end writing about are not flat out comedies, but I do have a sense of humor,…
Life Itself Review
I would like to think somewhere Gene and Roger are having a hell of a time debating the artistic merits of this film, would give two thumbs up just to that debate. As I have mentioned many times on this site the Late Great Roger…