Pure, directed by Gillies MacKinnon, places adorable ten-year-old Paul (played by Harry Eden) in the company of junkies and their suppliers within a working class neighborhood in London’s East End, not far from the Upton Park soccer stadium in West Ham. Mel (played by Molly Parker), Paul’s widowed mother, is hooked on heroin. So is […]
In California v McMartin, the longest and most expensive criminal trial in American history, the owner and employees of a daycare facility in Manhattan Beach were falsely accused of sexually abusing children. An alcoholic wife estranged from her husband brought the accusation in 1983, which an attorney in the District Attorney’s office used, hoping to
The President’s Last Bang (Geuddae geusaramdeul), directed by Im Sangsoo, is a Korean film, with a “based on a true story” initial title, which purports to explain events surrounding the 1979 assassination of President Park Chunghee (Song Jaeho), whose military coup topped a fledging democracy in 1961. The assassin is Kim Jaegyu (played by Baik
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At the beginning of the academic year, college students and faculty may hope for a film exalting academia, but they are seldom satisfied. The recent movie Proof, directed by John Madden, is hence much appreciated. In the tradition of Good Will Hunting (1997) and A Beautiful Mind (2001), the story in Proof deals with mathematicians. When the film begins, a very
Vin Diesel, a fast-rising star in the macho movie genre, has now transitioned his career past pure action in The Pacifier, directed by Adam Shankman. The story is about a he-man who is hired to be a babysitter and diaperchanger. The plot, however, is intriguing enough that comedic elements, as featured in trailers of the film,
Harry and Max, directed by Christopher Munch, focuses on the difficulty of sustaining some gay relationships. Harry (played by Bryce Johnson), a twenty-three-year-old has-been rock star, has flown from New York to Los Angeles to be with his sixteen-year-old brother Max (played by Cole Williams) in the early spring for a long-deferred camping trip. Having just
The Great Role (Le grand rôle), directed by Steve Suissa, is about Maurice Kurtz (played by Stéphane Freiss), a Jewish actor in Paris who hopes for a big break in his career–to play the title role in a production of Merchant of Venice with a famous director, Rudolph Grichenberg (played by Peter Coyote), who wants
Although publicity for Guess Who, directed by Kevin Rodney Sullivan, hypes the film as a comedy based on Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? (1967), the movie is instead an imperfect copy of Meet the Parents (2000). Simon Green (played by a nervous Ashton Kutcher), a stockbroker on Wall Street, is in love with Theresa Jones (played by Zoë Saldaña), who
Head-On (Gegen die Wand), directed and written by Fatih Akin, is primarily a story about the transformation of Cahit Tomruk (played by Birol Ünel), a Turk whose family went to Hamburg in search of a better life. He is a German citizen without a family who, at about the age of forty, has been living
Four Brothers, directed by John Singleton, is a fast-paced action film set in Detroit (though also filmed in Canada) that is a loose retake of The Sons of Katie Elder (1965). At the beginning of the film, two robbers enter a convenience store one evening, gun down the sole cashier and shoot saintly Evelyn Mercer (played by