Recommended The Movie: Musical biopics are the worst. They tend to exhibit the most infuriating aspects of regular biopics — the many shortcuts screenwriters take to squeeze a human life into three acts and 120 pages — plus they have an added requirement: they gotta play the hits.
Highly Recommended Please Note: The screen shots used here are taken from the DVD portion of Chaplin's Mutual Comedies. The Movies: Like The Beatles in 1964 or Michael Jackson in 1983, Chaplin's Mutual Comedies 1916-17 gives you Charlie Chaplin, Pop Culture Icon at the peak of his popularity.
Rent It The Movie: At only 31 years of age, director Drake Doremus already has four features under his belt. He has proven himself to be a prolific young American filmmaker. His 2011 effort Like Crazy , unseen by me, made a minor splash as a romance that supposedly didn't condescend to its youth demographic and presented young characters who were smarter and more layered than the usual Nicholas …
Recommended Following years of steady but dead-end employment as a supporting player, actor Charles Bronson abandoned Hollywood for the European continent where, very quickly, he established himself there and in Asia as a major star. It was during Bronson's “European period” that he made some of his best films: Farewell, Friend , Once Upon a Time in the West (both 1968), Rider on the Rain …
Highly Recommended Fed Up is director Stephanie Soechtig's second documentary following 2009's Tapped , which examined the production of bottled water and its disastrous effects on regional water supplies. Not surprisingly, it was an unapologetic, one-sided affair that aggressively attacked corporations bent on putting short-term profits ahead of long-term sustainability. Though it didn't always …
Rent It The Movie: The pleasant, straightforward Burt's Buzz documents a few weeks in the life of Burt Shavitz, otherwise known as the scraggly-bearded man pictured on those Burt's Bees skin care products stocked in drug stores everywhere. Like Kentucky Fried Chicken's Colonel Sanders, it can be disarming to think that there's a real person behind the merchandise. Just as one couldn't picture …
Highly Recommended Where's the love for Stanley Kramer? Dismissed for half a century as a minimally talented producer-director of “message pictures,” Kramer is long overdue for a major reappraisal. As a producer he made some of the finest films of the late 1940s through the mid- 50s: Champion , Home of the Brave (both 1949), The Men (1950), High Noon (1952), The Wild One (1953), The Caine Mutiny …
Highly Recommended THE MOVIE: Please Note: The screen captures used here are taken from an earlier DVD release, not the Blu-ray edition under review. Often, well-meaning films that deal with issues important to their time lose their bite over the years.
Recommended THE MOVIE: Please Note: The screen captures used here are taken from an earlier DVD release, not the Blu-ray edition under review.
Highly Recommended In 10 Words or Less Even on TV, Pixar's breakout hit is outstanding Reviewer's Bias* Loves: Toy Story , Pixar films Likes: Animated shorts Dislikes: Unnecessary sequels Hates: Most made-for-TV sequels The Movie Toy Story has one of the more interesting runs in movie trilogy history. The first film was a work of genius that required no sequel.