HUMAN SEX TRAFFICKING IS PORTRAYED IN TRADE OF INNOCENTS Trade of Innocents, directed by Christopher Bessette, is about teenage prostitutes in Cambodia. Two Americans, Alex and Claire Becker (played by Dermot Mulroney and Mira Sorvino) go to Cambodia (though filmed in Bangkok) to liberate the girls after their own 7-year-old daughter had been kidnapped and […]

LEONIE IS A BIOPIC OF THE WOMAN WHO MADE 2 JAPANESE MEN FAMOUS After graduating from Bryn Mawr, Leonie Gilmour (played by Emily Mortimer) applies for the job of editor for the poet Yone Noguchi (played by Shidô Nakamura) in New York and is hired. Yone soon declares his love, and she becomes pregnant with

KEN LOACH DEPICTS REDEMPTION IN THE ANGELS’ SHARE Director Ken Loach, long noted for social problem films, begins The Angels’ Share with an inebriated Scotsman who is among several in the next scene pleading guilty to receive the mercy of a Glasgow court, namely, hundreds of hours of “community payback.” One in particular, Robbie (played

THE COMPANY YOU KEEP IS ABOUT COMPANY LOST TRACK OF In the 1960s, some members of Students for a Democratic Society decided to take direct action methods. Known as the Weather Underground, they placed bombs in various locations and were high on the FBI “Most Wanted” list. Based on the novel The Company You Keep

CHILEANS SAY NO In 1988, General Augusto Pinochet, having been urged by the United States to hold a referendum on his continued rule according to the film No, opens the political arena for a 27-day campaign. Exactly 15 minutes are accorded to both sides on television each night. The result is that Pinochet is rejected

A WARNING ABOUT OZ: THE GREAT AND POWERFUL Advertised as a prequel to Frank Baum’s classic satire The Wizard of Oz, the animated film Oz is anything but. Dorothy, the Scarecrow, and the Tin Man are absent, and the only lion is fierce. Oz (played by James Franco) is a Kansas magician who lands somewhere

ZOLOFT IS NOT THE MEDICINE IN SIDE EFFECTS Hitchockian thrillers are very few nowadays and must be treasured. Similar to the surprise ending in Shutter Island(2010), the film Side Effects exploits someone’s mental illness to trap filmviewers into the wrong mindset. In this case, Emily Taylor (played by Rooney Mara), while waiting for her husband

KNIFE FIGHT GOES INSIDE THE SPIN TO AVOID THE MESSAGE Knife Fight begins as if a documentary featuring past presidential candidates, including some whose sexual affairs were never reported by the press at a time when television had not become a universal household possession. Nowadays, many Americans vote for their favorite political party, so they

VIOLENCE IN BROKEN CITY HIDES THE MESSAGE How can bankrupt cities, such as Detroit, balance their budgets? Broken City, directed by Allen Hughes, suggests that they might sell off city assets, which in the depicted New York City means having high rise developers tear down public or modest-income housing regardless of the impact on those

GANGSTER SQUAD EXPLAINS HOW THE MOB WAS THWARTED IN LA A nostalgia film for Angelenos, Gangster Squad (directed by Ruben Fleischer) is about the efforts of Mickey Cohen (played by Sean Penn) to control Los Angeles and the unorthodox countermeasures by a high-ranking police officer, William Parker (played by Nick Nolte). The year is 1949.