A DANGEROUS METHOD IS THE MOST INTELLECTUAL FILM OF THE YEAR Sigmund Freud (played by Viggo Mortensen) and Carl Jung (played by Michael Fassbender) debate but have private lives, too, in A Dangerous Method. Accordingly, the biopic would be incomplete without attention to Sabina Spielrein (played by Keira Knightley), who graduates from patient of Jung, […]

RAMPART IS ABOUT A COP-TURNED-VIGILANTE, NOT THE RAMPART SCANDAL For those expecting a drama about the Rampart scandal that affected Los Angeles in the late 1990s, Rampart is not that. Instead, the film is about what happened to Dave Brown (played by Woody Harrel-son), one of those corrupt cops, as his career ends in 1999.

IN THE DESCENDANTS KING KAMEHAMEHA’S DESCENDANTS ARE ALL HAOLES, RACIALLY & CULTURALLY! Director Alexander Payne has miscast major characters in his adaptation of the 2007 novel by part-Hawaiian Kaui Hart Hemmings. Matthew King (played by George Clooney), trustee of an estate that owns many acres of undeveloped land on Kaua‘i, is about to sell the

VICTIMS OF AN ARROGANT WALL STREET MOGULGET EVEN IN TOWER HEIST A rich executive, Arthur Shaw (played by Alan Alda), swindles the life savings of a few dozen employees of a high-class condo in New York, claiming that he could triple their pensions with his investment savvy while actually pocketing millions. Victim Josh Kovacs (played

THE WOMAN KNIGHT OF MIRROR LAKE FEATURES CHINA’S FIRST FEMINIST When Qiu Jin (played by Huang Yi) was in infancy in 1881, she refused footbinding three times as too painful. But that started her thinking about the need for women’s liberation, which could only occur if centuries of dynastic rule were toppled for a more

KAWASAKI’S ROSE OPENS A GENERIC SKELETON IN THE POST-COMMUNIST CZECH CLOSET During the Communist era in Czechoslovakia, the authorities often sought to reeducate prominent dissidents after their arrest, and those who resisted were sometimes tortured or even exiled. Others were bullied into secretly compromising their integrity. Embarrassing secrets, thus, might inevitably emerge after the end

ANONYMOUS PRESENTS AN ALTERNATIVE HISTORY OF SHAKESPEARE When Anonymous begins, a prologue actor says that the actor William Shakespeare only had a grammar school education and no original manuscripts of his works have ever been discovered with his signature. The actor then promises filmviewers an alternative history in which the supposed writer, Edward De Vere,

THE MILL AND THE CROSS EXPLAINS WHAT BREUGEL PUT ON CANVAS In 1555, Flemish-speaking Hapsburg ruler Charles V abdicated. Philip II of Spain became king. Mercenaries in Spanish uniforms then entered Flanders to enforce the Inquisition. Those who spoke French were already Catholics, but Jews and Protestants were targeted for death. Many escaped to provinces