Pedro Almodovar’s Volver (“Return”) is amazingly bright, fresh and clean for a film dealing with murder, adultery, incest, malignant disease and the occasional supernatural apparition. It is a testament to Almodovar’s vision that in a film in which half the characters are dead or dying, there should be this much life and vigor.

[Read more →]

Men basically break down into two groups—those who think Jennifer Garner is beautiful and those who think that she, in the words of one of my best friends, is “manish.” I am of the former persuasion. Those in the latter camp are just plain silly.
It cannot be denied that Garner has not made the wisest [...]

[Read more →]

What a bold, ballsy stroke of genius Clint Eastwood had when he decided to make not one, but two films about the battle for Iwo Jima—one told from the familiar perspective of the American attackers and the other from the vantage point of the Japanese defending the island. Has such a thing ever before been [...]

[Read more →]

2003’s Lost Boys of Sudan startled the world and bowled over critics. Now, in 2007, comes an unintentional companion piece in God Grew Tired of Us. Covering some of the same ground but with a longer scope (filming took place over four years), God Grew Tired of Us is no less noteworthy and powerful than [...]

[Read more →]

People always second-guess the films that win an Oscar for Best Picture. And often times with good reason. Chariots of Fire beat out Raiders of the Lost Ark. Oliver beat The Lion in Winter. Ordinary People beat Raging Bull. And don’t even get me started on the instantly impotent A Beautiful Mind. Then there are [...]

[Read more →]