Skyfall–Bond is Back!

November 17, 2012

James Bond turns 50 this year, (not counting the seven-year gestation from book to film). The secret agent with a license to kill burst upon the screen in 1962 to do battle with the eponymous Dr. No. The franchise has spawned 25 films, with seven actors playing the debonair agent and all of them highlighting [...]

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Denzel Takes “Flight”

November 7, 2012

The first five minutes of “Flight “is gratuitously and unnecessarily graphic–and I’m not talking about the plane crash, (which is spectacular). The film opens on the tip of a bare breast and pulls back to reveal a naked young woman who stumbles to the bathroom and back to the bed where she dons her scanties [...]

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Cloud Atlas

October 31, 2012

“Cloud Atlas” is an ambitious project, encompassing half a dozen story lines played by the same actors and spanning hundreds of years. The story concept reminded me of an engagement video I saw recently in which a young man induced his friends to create a dance video for his girlfriend. As the romantic pair walked [...]

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Argo Find Yourself!

October 25, 2012

One part compelling documentary, two parts zany Hollywood comedy, and three parts suspenseful spy thriller, “Argo” is one hundred percent excellence in filmmaking. Although the events depicted in “Argo” occurred in 1979-80, they could not be more timely. In 1979 we had a likable but inept President whose policies could not avert double-digit interest rates, double-digit [...]

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Atlas Shrugged Part II

October 16, 2012

The two questions I have been hearing from my libertarian friends all week are these: Have you seen the new “Atlas Shrugged? Is it any good”? My answers are Yes! and Ye-es… I was invited to attend a posh private screening with the producers in Manhattan two days before the official opening. David Kelley, founder [...]

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“Grace” on Broadway

October 9, 2012

“Grace,” a new play by Craig Wright, opens to a minimalist set of simple bamboo furniture, the kind you might find in a Florida beach rental. A front door and a sliding glass door stand alone, but there are no actual walls. Dominating the set is a halo of blue sky and puffy white clouds [...]

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Arbitrage

September 28, 2012

As “Arbitrage” begins, Robert Miller (Richard Gere), the respected head of a billion-dollar capital investment firm, is being interviewed on a cable news show. “Competition for our limited amount of money causes asset bubbles, and then they burst,” he explains in terms simple enough for even the most casual moviegoer to understand. I rolled my [...]

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The Queen of Versailles

September 19, 2012

Making a documentary is a lot like planting a seed you find in the yard; you don’t know what you’re going to get until after you start filming. When director Lauren Greenfield began filming “The Queen of Versailles,” real estate was at its height as an investment, and time share mogul David Siegel was a [...]

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Lawless, and Liking It

September 15, 2012

Responding to the September 11 attacks on U.S. embassies in Libya and Egypt, Fox News correspondent Ralph Peters made this controversial statement: “Obama’s appeasement policy… won’t work against these radical Islamists. With people like these, when they kill four of yours, you have to kill 400 of theirs.” Peters’ outrageous, counterintuitive “defense plan” is more [...]

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“The Amazing Spider-Man”–again.

July 5, 2012

What is with all these Superhero movies? “Iron Man.” “The Incredible Hulk” “Captain America” “Thor.” Do we really need yet another version of Spider-man? Okay. We get it. Peter Parker gets bitten by an enhanced spider while visiting a science lab. His uncle is killed by a criminal whom Spidey could have stopped if he [...]

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