This is an abridged version of a review I wrote for Christianity Today Movies. To read the rest of this review, click here.
I was discharged from the military the week of September 11, 2001. I filled out my separation documents literally within a stone’s throw of the smoldering Pentagon. I was sure someone was going […]

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Inspired by the true story of M.I.T. students who spent weekends in Las Vegas counting cards at the blackjack tables and raking in millions, 21 takes that premise and builds on it, converting it into a run-of-the-mill, if still satisfying, drama.

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There is little original about Run Fatboy Run, the feature directorial debut of David Schwimmer (yes, that David Schwimmer). Unable to decide whether it wants to be a charming and polite comedy or a Farrelly Bros. gross-out knock off, it settles somewhere in the middle, embracing pleasant enough, if instantly forgettable, middle ground that ultimately […]

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Married Life reveals that playing pretend is not a game for children alone, but rather an artifice that finds its fullest expression in adulthood. The film is a story of marital discord hidden behind the placid, artificial exterior of a lifetime’s worth of practice making perfect. Pretty but emotionally inert, Married Life mirrors its protagonist’s […]

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This is a piece I wrote for the film website Cinemattraction. To read the original review/interview, click here.
Short films are the vast, undiscovered country of filmmaking. Most viewers relegate themselves to feature films alone, inadvertently walling themselves off from the audacious power of the short film. It would be a supreme fallacy to assume that […]

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This is an abridged version of a review I wrote for Christianity Today Movies. To read the rest of this review, click here.
Tyler Perry is both a Hollywood anomaly and an enviable success story. Since exploding on to the scene just six years ago with Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Perry has produced film […]

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The Counterfeiters, winner of this year’s Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, is based on the largest counterfeiting operation of all time during the waning years of World War II. The film is undeniably moving but suffers to some extent from being partially reconstituted from earlier Holocaust films.

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Don’t expect to walk out of Snow Angels happy. Though the entire film is about love, its early bloom is only one aspect of the film’s reach. Indeed, Snow Angels is far more interested in examining love in a state of putrid rot, looking for the exact moment when love chrysalises into loathing.

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Under the Same Moon tells the parallel stories of nine-year-old Carlitos (Adrian Alonso) and his mother, Rosario (Kate del Castillo). In the hopes of providing a better life for her son, Rosario left Carlitos with his grandmother four years ago and now works illegally in the United States. Carlitos’ heart aches for his mother and […]

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This is an abridged version of a review I wrote for Christianity Today Movies. To read the rest of this review, click here.
The work of Dr. Seuss has an admittedly lackluster history when it comes to big screen adaptations. While Chuck Jones’ animated Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch Who Stole Christmas is a beloved, generation-spanning holiday […]

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