January 2011

True Grit

January 29, 2011

The story of True Grit is as simple as a classic western and as iconic as a Greek drama — a tale of revenge and redemption, told from the back of a horse. Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin) has killed Frank Ross in cold blood. Frank’s 14-year-old daughter, Mattie (Hailee Steinfeld), is determined to see Chaney [...]

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The Tourist

January 29, 2011

Johnny Depp, my favorite actor to rave about, and Angelina Jolie, my favorite actress to rage against, together in the same film — how could I resist The Tourist? Despite its poor critical reviews, I had to see the film for myself. The Tourist is an old-school spy thriller in the style of Alfred Hitchcock. [...]

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The Fighter

January 29, 2011

The Fighter, directed by David O. Russell. Paramount Pictures, 2010, 115 minutes. Reviewed by Jo Ann Skousen Do we really need another rags-to-riches movie about boxing? Probably not. But filmmakers keep making them, and we keep watching them. Whether you like boxing or not, there is something cathartic about the heroes’ struggle itself. Like the [...]

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The King’s Speech

January 29, 2011

Robert Frost defined poetry as “a lump in the throat; a homesickness or a love-sickness . . . where an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found the words.” Just as a poem can express an emotion or describe a relationship through a single snapshot, sometimes a person’s character can be summed [...]

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The Way Back

January 29, 2011

War is evil for many reasons, not the least of which is the way it forces people who are normally good, kind, and honorable to commit atrocities in an effort to survive. This is seen in many of the characters who populate the film The Way Back,about a group of WWII prisoners who manage to [...]

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And the nominees are….

January 29, 2011

I wasn’t a fan of the Motion Picture Academy’s decision to expand its field of Best Picture nominees to a crowded 10. But maybe the Academy is onto something. This year it has given its membership the opportunity to recognize a range of work that includes small independent films, big-budget blockbusters, thoughtful biographies, an animated [...]

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