Miss Potter is a film that doesn’t quite work and yet somehow remains charming and even moving regardless.

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“People die in fairy tales all the time.” — Cinderella Man
Once upon a time there appeared a dark and wonderful fairy tale for grown-ups about a young girl beset by monsters, both real and imaginary. Spanish director Guillermo Del Toro (The Devil’s Backbone, Hellboy) has made a dark, violent, R-rated fantasy that is as unquenchably […]

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Notes on a Scandal is melodrama at its best, a nasty, wickedly good, over-the-top story with school teachers standing in where vampires usually prowl. Using a “ripped from the headlines” template, the film is a wide-eyed and delicious examination of obsession and self-delusion.
Like the best allegories of Middle Ages, the characters’ extra-Biblical names reveal almost […]

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We Are Marshall is like every other underdog sports movie you’ve ever seen-with a twist. Instead of a team overcoming a bad record, racism, or an overwhelming opponent, the 1971 Marshall University Thundering Herd is overcoming the complete and total loss of the 75-member 1970 football team and its coaching staff to a disastrous plane […]

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“I have some real problems with this whole thing, despite how much we need it. I’m concerned that too much power will end up in the hands of too few. It’s always in someone’s best interest to promote enemies whether real or imagined. I see this as America’s eyes and ears — I don’t want […]

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I should confess from the outset that the film that I value above all others, my favorite film of all time, if you will, is David Lean’s masterful 1962 epic, Lawrence of Arabia. High among its breathtaking reasons for acclaim is Peter O’Toole’s luminous performance as an eccentric yet dashing British army officer. In the […]

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I saw Brokeback Mountain at the Telluride Film Festival in 2005. As we settled into our seats for a film few of us knew anything about, we were informed that the Venice Film Festival, running concurrently, had just called and asked us to delay the film for one hour to allow the world premiere to […]

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Many people mistakenly believe Thomas Jefferson championed the self-evident truths of life, liberty and happiness. But that is not what the author of the Declaration of Independence wrote. He stated that all human beings had a right to the pursuit of happiness. Happiness itself is not guaranteed, but everyone, he asserted, has the inalienable right […]

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While diamonds are the obvious subject of Blood Diamond, they are also meant to be a symbol representing all of the coveted resources of Africa’s abundant fertility, raped by Western powers over the centuries. Yes, Blood Diamond is preachy, but it’s a sermon we need to hear.

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