courtesy of the Weinstein Company Johan “JW” Westlund, ace student at the Stockholm School of Economics, likes to take risks. A poor kid from the Swedish equivalent of Iowa, JW hobnobs with the capital city rich kids, pretending to a wealth he doesn’t have and lying to everyone he knows. He’s the Talented Mr. Ripley […]
Glenn McDonald
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Beat connection: A scattered but satisfying On the Road
On the Road Opens Friday (see times below) It’s said that God protects drunks, fools and little children. If so, He must have been working overtime during Jack Kerouac’s prime rambling days, at least as depicted in On the Road, the new film adaptation of Kerouac’s most famous book. A scattered but earnest transposition of […]
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DVD+Digital: Terence Malick, deep focus and Badlands
courtesy of the Criterion Collection One of the more auspicious debuts in film history, the 1973 drama Badlands was director Terrence Malick’s first project after film school. Loosely based on the real-life killing spree of Charles Starkweather in 1958, it stars Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek as Kit and Holly, two young lovers on the […]
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DVD+Digital: Sholem Aleichem, Mark Twain and Laughing in the Darkness
courtesy of Docudrama Films The well-made 90-minute film documentary may be mankind’s most efficient mode of communication. When put together by skilled filmmakers, the feature-length documentary can convey quite massive amounts of information while providing wit and heart and functioning as, you know, a movie. Such is the case with the historical documentary Sholem Aleichem: […]
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The West Memphis Three are free … what about the real killer?
West of Memphis opens Friday (see times below) Our rating: In 1993, three young boys were found brutally murdered in the small community of West Memphis, Ark. In the maelstrom of initial disclosures and media coverage, it was reported that the bodies found in a drainage ditch showed signs of ritual murder. The community panicked, […]
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A gorgeous but flimsy Oz
Courtesy of The Walt Disney Company Oz the Great and Powerful** starsOpens FridayIn the opening scenes of Oz the Great and Powerful, director Sam Raimi’s pretty but rickety prequel to The Wizard of Oz, huckster stage magician Oscar Diggs (James Franco) is preparing for his show with traveling circus. The year is 1905. The place […]
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DVD+Digital: Eco horror, crustaceous isopods and The Bay
courtesy of Lionsgate Home Entertainment It’s Fourth of July in the seaside tourist town of Claridge, Md., on the Chesapeake Bay. All is well. The parade is forming up on Main Street. The kids are tubing out in the harbor. The annual crab eating contest is in full swing. Then the bad things start to […]
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DVD+Digital: Oscar winners, runners-up and release dates
By all accounts, the 85th annual Academy Awards was a star-studded affair, with glamorous people saying glamorous things in glamorous clothing. Sadly, I missed this year’s telecast due the fact that Seth MacFarlane makes me want to go on a tri-state killing spree. If you’d like to catch up with some of the Oscar winners […]
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Following a group of Brits through their lives in 56 Up
56 Up opens Friday (see times below) Our rating: Director Michael Apted’s Up series is one of the most intriguing projects in the history of documentary film. Initiated in 1963, the series began with a profile of 14 British 7-year-olds from various walks of life. Every seven years since then, Aptedan assistant on the first […]
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DVD+Digital: Brando, Kazan and On The Waterfront
courtesy of the Criterion Collection Director Elia Kazan’s classic 1954 drama On The Waterfront tells the story of dockworker Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando), a once-promising boxer whose life is derailed when he gets mixed up with mobbed-up labor union honchos on the NYC waterfront. As you may have heard, Terry coulda been a contender. On […]