The Descendants: Trouble in Paradise

In a recent interview, Alexander Payne said that he’s only made minor films and that he’s still hoping to make a really good one someday. Well, considering his output (five films, all of them deserving three-and-a-half to five-star ratings), he’d better deliver one hell of a classic masterpiece in the future. The Descendants, his first movie in seven years, is one of his warmest and most earnest offerings…
IMDb

Published 2012-01-25 09:37. Read this full length review

Julie & Julia


Nora Ephron’s best film in a decade tells two parallel stories – one set in 2002 where a New Yorker (Amy Adams) starts a blog and intends to cook every dish in Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” over a year, and one set in the 1950s chronicling Child’s (Meryl Streep) hard work behind that classic book. Slightly overlong, but well planned and something of a charmer…
IMDb

Published 2012-01-24 12:08. Read this capsule review

Mao's Last Dancer

In the early 1980s, Li Cunxin (Chi Cao) arrives in Houston as a Chinese exchange student at the local ballet under the tutelage of Ben Stevenson (Bruce Greenwood); a love affair makes him want to stay in the U.S.. This reality-based story offers insight into how Li Cunxin was mercilessly drilled in China as a ballet student, but also how difficult it was for him to come to terms with his new life…
IMDb

Published 2012-01-23 12:13. Read this capsule review

Page Eight


At the same time as Johnny Worricker (Bill Nighy) is getting to know his neighbor (Rachel Weisz) better, he receives a report with explosive contents from his long-time friend and boss, MI5 Director General Benedict Baron (Michael Gambon). Originally intended as a feature film, this intimate and quiet portrayal of an aging agent nevertheless fits television quite well…
IMDb

Published 2012-01-22 12:43. Read this capsule review

Ziegfeld Girl

In the 1920s, three girls (Lana Turner, Judy Garland, Hedy Lamarr) join the Ziegfeld Follies and handle the challenges of stardom in different ways. Originally meant to be a sequel to Robert Z. Leonard’s The Great Ziegfeld (1936), this was turned into a story that stands on its own. The portrayal of the three Broadway starlets and their problems with love…
IMDb

Published 2012-01-21 04:37. Read this capsule review

Hannibal Rising

In 1944, young Hannibal Lecter survives the horrors of war in his native Lithuania and spends the next decade hunting (and punishing) the men who hurt his sister. The fifth film about the famed shrink/cannibal traces his origins and explains to us why he turned out the way he did. Lecter remains an intriguing figure, but Gaspard Ulliel is not up to the challenge of doing him justice…
IMDb

Published 2012-01-20 05:35. Read this capsule review

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