A dysfunctional family gathers together in a time of need, only to find more challenges than answers, in August: Osage County. Many years ago, my grandfather shared with me a key piece of wisdom that, I’m embarrassed to say, I learned far later than I should have. I’d been struggling with some family dynamics, and […]
A highly motivated stockbroker rises from neophyte to Nero in The Wolf of Wall Street. With all the more recent news about Wall Street excess, it’s sometimes easy to forget the myriad of scandals that came before. In the ’80s and ’90s, we had crooks like Michael Milken, Ivan Boesky and, of course, the folks […]
A perpetual daydreamer, longing to break free from his mundane life, jumps at an unexpected opportunity in James Thurber‘s classic tale The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Walter Mitty (Ben Stiller) is your typical geeky introvert. He goes through each day wondering what life would be like if only he could escape the chains of […]
Two retired boxing adversaries get one last chance to settle a decades-old grievance in Grudge Match. Thirty years ago, two boxers — Henry “Razor” Sharp (Sylvester Stallone) and Billy “The Kid” McDonnen (Robert De Niro) — faced each other in two monumental matches with each winning one bout. On the eve of the culminating third event, Razor […]
I really like journeys to the past in movies, especially when they stop somewhere in the ‘70s or ‘80s. I’m sure that’s because of my age and my formative years taking place in those decades. (I still can’t imagine life back then or even college without some of the major conveniences like cell phones that […]
A confined cat, desperate to explore his tantalizing surroundings, is waylaid by a perpetual loser in Inside Llewyn Davis. Okay, so that’s not the intended synopsis of the latest Coen Brothers film, but it likely would have made a more entertaining tale than the one they actually produced. This period piece from 1961 features a […]
Two small-time con artists are forced to work for an egocentric FBI agent out to make his mark in American Hustle. It was October of 1972. I was eight years old when a man walked up to me on River Road in Camden, New Jersey. The man asked if I’d like to go to work […]
Iconic studio head Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) needs all the magic he can muster to win the screen rights to Mary Poppins in Saving Mr. Banks. The classic tale of the magical title character comes from a series of best-selling stories by English author P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson). Mrs. Travers (as she insisted on being called) […]
A elderly woman and a stodgy former government adviser join forces to track down the son she gave up for adoption years before in Philomena. In the 1950s, a young woman in Ireland let herself experience a moment of carnal joy, only to find herself pregnant, alone and ostracized. Social tenets of the day drove Philomena Lee (Judi […]
An aging socialite considers the allure of his surroundings and his place in life at the turn of his 65th birthday in The Great Beauty (La Grande Bellezza). The saying goes, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do,” and for Jep Gambardella (Tony Servillo), that’s amounted to a life of high-class socializing, including a […]
It’s tough for a filmmaker to get a reaction from people when there’s not a lot going on up on the screen. For some people, deadpan and wistful might translate to unfunny and boring. Nebraska is one of those movies that will divide people into two camps — those who get what it’s all about and those […]
Victors of the previous year’s games find anything but the peace they were promised in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. I need to point out right up front that I never read any of the incredibly successful books behind the films. As such, I can’t really speak to the faithfulness of the story from book […]