America didn’t win World War II solely on the backs of her men and women in uniform. Without the tireless efforts on the home front, there..
New episodes of the hit detective program Monk, starring Tony Shalhoub, air on the USA Network on Fridays
Fall 2005 -- When Frank Sinatra died in the spring of 1998, many critics and music lovers lamented his passing as “the end of an era.” The
Everybody remembers exactly where he was on September 11, 2001. I was taking a photojournalism course at the Defense Information School at
November 2006 -- A Scanner Darkly. Starring Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr., Woody Harrelson, Rory Cochrane, Winona Ryder. Based on the nove
In this independently released sleeper, consummate actor’s actor Anthony Hopkins brings a deceptively diminutive, real-life hero—legendary
In his feature-film directorial debut, Andy Garcia uses the screen as his canvas to paint a vibrant and wistful picture of a Havana he never
April 2006 -- V for Vendetta. Starring Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving, Stephen Rea, Stephen Fry, and John Hurt. Screenplay by Andy Wachowski
Thanks to the people of France—who, by electing Nicholas Sarkozy as their president, have finally come to their senses and reversed the
Few have personified the phrase “self-made man” as did legendary entertainer Sammy Davis, Jr...
Teri Horton—a 73-year-old grandma and retired over-the-road truck driver with only an eighth-grade education—just won’t (in the words of
Rescue Dawn is a great, if flawed, motion picture. German director Werner Herzog’s inspiring biopic recounts a daring POW-camp escape during
When I was a boy growing up in the suburbs of Baltimore, few songs stuck with me the way this one did. I think I was nine or ten, and upon..
It’s hard to believe that Bruce Willis’s wisecracking NYPD detective John McClane has been absent from the big screen for a dozen years...
Every decade or so, a motion picture comes along that captures its subject’s heroic essence so perfectly that the
Say what you want about Martin Scorsese, auteur of the dark anti-hero aesthetic: The man’s clearly in love with Hollywood’s Golden Age....
May 2007 -- In the previous issue, I wrote: “I offer Pan’s Labyrinth as exhibit ‘A’ that the independent revolution is over.” After seeing
March 2007 -- The Pursuit of Happyness. Starring Will Smith, Jaden Christopher Syre Smith, Thandie Newton, Brian Howe, James Karen, Dan
For years, as a guilty pleasure, I haunted my local multiplex to revel repeatedly in the serial cinematic exploits of Sylvester Stallone’s
June 2007 -- 300. Starring Gerard Butler, Lena Headey, Dominic West, David Wenham, Vincent Regan, Michael Fassbender, Tom Wisdom, Andrew
As gentle as 300 is gory, this biopic, starring Renée Zellweger as famed children’s author and illustrator Beatrix Potter, is director
The Music Never Ends. Featuring Clint Eastwood, Tony Bennett, Harry Belafonte, Everett Raymond Kinstler, Martin Scorsese, Arthur Penn, Bill
As redemption tales, boxing movies more than hold their own alongside war pictures, Bible epics, and tough-guy teachers who turn around
When I’m with friends, a favorite party drinking game is watching “Behind the Music” on VH1. The show usually profiles some graying rock
Clint Eastwood is arguably our greatest living motion picture director. Thirty-five years after his directorial debut in the Hitchcock
Who really wants to see another feel-good movie about a tough educator who takes on both the most violent juvenile delinquents and “the
As the opening title montage for We Own the Night closes, the film cuts to a familiar nightclub scene that places the audience in the
One consequence of Hollywood’s descent into the morass of mindless formula-driven folderol was the rise of independent filmmakers. They’ve
April 2007 -- The Astronaut Farmer. Starring Billy Bob Thornton, Virginia Madsen, Max Thieriot, Jasper Polish, Bruce Dern, Mark Polish, Jon
April 2008 -- Juno. Starring Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, Allison Janney, J.K. Simmons, Olivia Thirlby, Eileen
Beowulf. Featuring Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, John Malkovich, Robin Wright Penn, Angelina Jolie, Crispin Glover, Sonje Fortag, Sharisse
I hate remakes. They are, mostly, an insult to filmgoers. Their implicit justification is either “audiences won’t go for old movies that
I thoroughly enjoyed Michael Moore’s “documentary” Sicko. I went to San Antonio’s Bijou Crossroads on its opening night, and from the looks
Down here in south Texas, I’m occasionally drawn unawares into conversations with congregants of the evangelical Cornerstone Church, whose..
There Will Be Blood. Starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano, Martin Stringer, Kevin J. O’Connor, Jacob Stringer, Matthew Braden Stringer, Ciar
A lot of my listeners will often call up and say, “I preferred you when you were a Libertarian.” I always tell them I never was a....
May 2008 -- I’m not supposed to like Americanizing Shelley, at least not according to the unwritten code of my profession. It doesn’t affect
“Men and women are different,” says a frustrated soldier to a young girl who’s been questioning his authority in Jafar Panahi’s lighthearted
As I don’t equate a movie’s budget with its worth, please don’t take it as a sobriquet that young director Evan Coyne Maloney’s recent..
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