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With few exceptions, the films that tackle historical periods and their figures best are those that attack their subjects a bit obliquely. When asked to summon a cinematic image of D-Day, for instance, most might think first of Saving Private Ryan, which merely uses Omaha Beach as the visceral prologue [...]

Man, did I not want to watch Fair Game. I remember the actual events, and I just wasn’t in the mood to relive the mistakes of the Younger Bush administration. Also, I’m not a big Sean Penn fan. He strikes me as kind of a jerk most times. I’m sure he’s [...]

I’ll admit that the first trailers for The Fighter gave me the impression that it was yet another inspirational underdog “based on a true story” boxing movie with little to distinguish it from its predecessors. I had no doubt it would be very well made, it just didn’t look like anything I [...]

Conviction was a very “serviceable” drama based on a true story. Hilary Swank stars as Betty Anne Waters, a working mom who decides to put herself through law school so she can defend her brother, Kenny (Sam Rockwell), whom she believes to be wrongfully convicted of a grisly murder.

When I first heard this project was in the works, I groaned. I’m not a Beatles fan, never have been. The first time I saw a picture of the group I immediately recognized Paul McCartney as the guy who tried to steal Michael Jackson’s girl, but thought that whoever this other band was they were [...]

The Social Network, directed by David “Fight Club” Fincher and written by Aaron “Sports Night” Sorkin, purports to be a slick behind-the-scenes account of the meteoric rise of everyone’s favorite social networking site, and it certainly is that: slick. My first warning: this film is about as likely to offer you the [...]

HBO has done it again with this Barry Levinson (Diner)-directed film about Jack Kevorkian, the famed Dr. Death of the 1990’s. This pay-TV channel seems to have found the magic formula for producing terrific movies that the big studios won’t touch; long known for its serious series like The Sopranos, Deadwood, Big [...]

Temple Grandin. Now there’s a name that was ready-built for fame and consequence. It’s a name that may only now be entering household use, but Grandin’s influence, both as a professional and as an example to others, has had a significant impact for decades, in this country and elsewhere. Few [...]

Italian cinema was once distinguished for its postwar “neorealism” movement, with films that were shot on location in a stripped down, almost documentary style, exemplified by titles like Rossellini’s Rome, Open City (1946) and de Sica’s Bicycle Thieves (1948). Times seem to have changed, though not necessarily for the worse. With a [...]

2009 marked the anniversaries of two of the greatest milestones in human understanding. 400 years ago last year, Galileo Galilei turned his improved telescopes to the sky and found new evidence that the earth was not the center of the universe. 150 years ago last year, Charles Darwin published “On the [...]