Director Martin Scorsese has the knack of filling his better films with an intense energy, and I cannot think of a story better suited to Scorsese’s urgency than this tale of a fearless financier taking advantage of everyone around him. […]

Alexander Payne is becoming mid-America’s version of Woody Allen, making small-scale, personal movies in unique, interesting ways.  His feature films Election (1999), About Schmidt (2002), Sideways (2004) and The Descendants (2011) feature quirky characters in realistic situations taken to absurd limits, enacted by wonderful […]

Adapting plays for the big screen is a tricky business, especially when a playwright takes on the task him or her self.  Sometimes they come across as artificial or very cramped or stagy in some respect.  When done right, however, […]

Some movies are essentially indescribable, at least in terms of genre, type or even effect.  Such is the case with American Hustle, David O. Russell’s new exploration of the 1970s.  On the surface it is a very loose interpretation of […]

Who knew there was so much turmoil behind the story of Mary Poppins?  In 1964 the public was presented with a jolly holiday of a movie replete with joyful music, peppy characters and a serious but sweet undertone.  It won […]

Director and co-writer Scott Cooper has made what could have been a really good, provocative revenge thriller; at least, that’s what the preview promised.  Sadly, the result is a slow, muddled thriller without any thrills. Two brothers (Christian Bale, Casey […]

I am on record as being rather ambivalent about the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy that Peter Jackson fashioned a decade ago.  They are certainly well made movies, but I cannot connect with them in any meaningful way.  Middle Earth […]