I am admittedly not the target audience for Mafia Mamma. This is a chick flick (nothing wrong with that) mob comedy about empowerment. The best aspect of Catherine Hardwicke’s film is that it’s about a flawed woman who has some shit happen to her, and we can somewhat identify with …

What a spectacular missed opportunity Chris McKay’s Renfield is. The screenplay by Ryan Ridley, based on a story from The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman (that’s a big name to have attached to this project), is hampered by focusing on characters not named Dracula and Renfield. Despite some cleverness in …

Bertrand Tavernier’s In The Electric Mist takes a well-worn formula (small-town Southern cop story) and adds some added weight and levity. Think of it as a John Grisham movie without lawyers and with a pulse. The film is based on the novel In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead by …

Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye immediately establishes the mood and tone of the picture perfectly. It’s a classic Altman sequence that refuses to rush things as we enter this world of updated Raymond Chandler for the 1970s. Elliott Gould’s Philip Marlowe is awoken by his cat at 3 in the …

Kurt Wimmer’s Equilibrium is a curious case. It explores themes of individuality, free will, and the power of human emotion. It’s a bit of a jumbled mess and sloppy at times, but some good action scenes and a few thought-provoking ideas are also interspersed. Roger Ebert wrote, “Equilibrium would be …

Introducing, Another Look:  Instead of doing another Unsung Cinema, I’ve launched another series of articles tentatively titled Another Look. These are for films I watch that doesn’t fit the Unsung Cinema category, especially a movie like Sexy Beast. Sure, you could argue that it is unsung, and in some ways, …

Some movies, as they say, are right up your alley, and Gregor Jordan’s Buffalo Soldiers is an example of a film that exudes a mood that I identify with. Notably, in this case, a somewhat cynical outlook on life in general. Buffalo Soldiers is different from many Army movies because …

I always preach that the first responsibility of a movie dealing with historical subjects is to be dramatically compelling. You don’t go to the film to get an entirely historically accurate depiction; you want to, first and foremost, be entertained. To be entertained and enlightened. That’s why we go to …

I am not a fan of Dungeons & Dragons. I’ve never played the game, not even once. I’ve certainly heard of it and have seen people playing it; I know it occupies a special place in many people’s hearts, especially before using a personal computer. I’m just not one of …

“Baseball is made for kids. Grownups only screw it up.” – Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Lemon This quote is the thesis of Andrew Scheinman’s Little Big League, a fantastic and intelligent baseball movie buried beneath the surge of kids sports movies in the 1990s. In particular, baseball movies were …