THE WOODSMAN SUGGESTS WHY EX-CONS ARE DOOMED TO RETURN TO PRISON When a prisoner is paroled after a twelve-year sentence for child molesting, how can he return to a normal life? That is the question asked in The Woodsman, directed by Nicole Kassell, based on the play by Steven Fechter. Walter (played by Kevin Bacon), […]
A History of Violence, directed by David Cronenberg, has been hyped as a paradigm of violence in America. Instead, the film could be called “Godfather IV,” that is, a film about a member of the mafia who tries to go straight. But that would deprive filmviewers of a surprise about two-thirds of the way through
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The Honeymooners, directed by John Schultz, is a long overdue film version of a television sitcom from the 1950s. However, the 2005 version features two African American couples. When the film begins, in 1999, busdriver Ralph Kramden (played by Cedric the Entertainer) woos and wins waitress Alice (played by Gabrielle Union), promising that one day
The Jacket, directed by John Maybury, brings to the screen a case study of the psychological damage inflicted by combat as well as of the psychological torture involved in improper psychiatric treatment. The film, which jumps back and forth in time, has a central puzzle: Was Jack Starks (played by Adrien Brody) resurrected after his
Hostage, a thriller directed by Florent Emilio Siri, is based on the 2001 book by Robert Crais. In the prologue, Jeff Talley (played by Bruce Willis), a seventeen-year LAPD veteran who has for ten years been the chief SWAT negotiator with gangsters holding hostages, botches a hostage situation and three persons die. Mortified by his
Filmviewers in China laughed at Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) because the mid-air fight scenes were ridiculously fake, involving wires. Kung Fu Hustle (titled in Chinese Gong Fu), directed by Stephen Chow, may be seen as a satirical riposte, with fight scenes so unrealistic that the laughter is genuine; satires of other films abound in Kung Fu Hustle, though they
In 1857, an uprising known in many textbooks as the Sepoy Mutiny occurred in Barrackpore, near Calcutta, India. Mangal Pandey: The Rising, directed by Ketan Mehta, is a dramatization of that event, which the film informs us was the first war of Indian independence. Up to 1857, the East India Company operated in India outside
Millions, a British film directed by Danny Boyle, is a Christmas fable based on the premise that the Bank of England will have to burn a certain quantity of paper money before the conversion to the Euro currency. When the movie begins, the family of Ronnie Cunningham (played by James Nesbitt) is moving from a
Mrs. Henderson Presents, directed by Stephen Frears, is a biopic about Laura Henderson (played by Judi Dench), who buys the derelict Windmill Theatre in the Piccadilly section of London after her husband dies, restores the interior, and hires out-of-work Vivian Van Damm (played by Bob Hoskins) to manage a musical review. Indeed, he is hired
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That homophobia results in teenage suicide is a dry fact, but My Summer of Love supplies a plot that vividly portrays how such a tragedy might occur. Directed by Pawel Pawlikowski and based on the novel by Helen Cross, the film focuses on love between middle class sixteen-year-old Tamsin (played by Emily Blunt) and slightly younger, working