Two Days, One Night Review

A lean, no nonsense film crafted in the most brutally honest style of the Dardennes with a stellar performance by Marion Cotillard.  In the Dardenne brothers David vs Goliath drama, Sandra (Marion Cotillard) is a young wife and mother working for a small manufacturing business in Seraing, Belgium. She takes medical leave for a nervous

The Duke of Burgundy Review

A deliciously deviant romp into sexual adventure grounded in the real life struggle for enduring intimacy. Peter Strickland’s film shows nothing if not a lot of courage. The screenplay reflects on the seemingly Victorian experiences of two sexually liberated and experimentally inclined women against a backdrop of heavily disciplined and constrained academic isolation. Evelyn (“Berberian”

The Boy Next Door Review

A thrown together collection of hackneyed and screwball soft porn, toilet humor and predictable violence. Although director Rob Cohen’s film is classified as a thriller, it is anything but. The first sixty minutes of the ninety-one minute movie is a straight up TV soap opera with nothing but the most hackneyed, overused plot tricks. The

Mortdecai Review

Johnny Depp as an updated Baron Munchausen. Even in the middle of watching this hugely entertaining Johnny Depp slapstick-a-thon the viewer finds him/herself wondering if the great actor’s best days are behind him. The edginess is mostly gone and in its place are double the cleverness and four times the action, production and special effects.

This is Where I Leave You Blu-ray Review

With a stellar cast, This is Where I Leave You brings a dramedy that is funny, loveable, and heartfelt at the same time. Jane Fonda is the matriarch of the Altman family and leads the march in this off-beat movie about a dysfunctional family that must stay together for seven days because of their dead

Winners of the 2013 – 2014 International Online Film Critics’ Poll Announced

Today the International Online Film Critics’ Poll announced its winners for the 4th biannual awards for excellence in film. Founded in 2007, the IOFCP is the only biannual poll of film critics from all around the world (over one hundred critics from USA, UK, Italy, Spain, Canada, France, Mexico, Australia, India, Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, South Africa,

Cake Review

Jennifer Aniston does something completely different in this potboiler of a psychodrama and succeeds marvelously. From the opening shot of Jennifer Aniston in Daniel Barnz’ simmering psycho-drama you know you are not watching “Friends” anymore. Aniston is made up to the hilt with the best prosthetics since Steve Carell’s nose in “Foxcatcher” and when it

A Most Violent Year Review

Not as violent as the title would imply, this is a sterling essay in inner strength. The story is set in New York City in 1981, in what we are told is the most violent year in the city’s history. Before we go any further, it should be noted that J.C. Chandor’s wonderfully transporting story

15 Must-Sees At Sundance Film Festival ‘15

For M&C by Greg Ptacek and Carolyn Schroeder With the 2014 Oscar nominations still ringing in our ears, the question on everyone lips about the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, which begins next week, is which of the 200+ films screening there will be the next “Whiplash” and Boyhood”? We refer, of course, to the two

Blackhat Review

James Bond grows a brain but the audience is not buying it. Although “Blackhat” is a fun romp into a fantasy world of explicitly bloody, violent international espionage, director Michael Mann (written by Morgan Davis Foehl) has created a work of sound and fury that signifies nothing. The film gets off to a good start