Category: Drama

  • Ask the Dust (2006)

    Lest you forget that there is no sure thing, we direct your attention to Ask the Dust.  The project must have looked irresistible on paper. Its pedigree is impeccable. After all, the film is based on the 1939 quasi-autobiographical novel by John Fante, whose rabid cult following included Charles Bukowski. Ask the Dust is written and directed by…

  • Chaplin (1992)

    When Lord Richard Attenborough announced in the late 1980s his intention to make a biopic about Charlie Chaplin, the enterprise smacked of Oscar bait. Attenborough’s bloated prestige production, Gandhi, had nabbed the 1982 Academy Award for best picture, and Chaplin’s tumultuous life, peppered with scandals of sex and politics, was the stuff of epic storytelling. If Chaplin as subject…

  • 99 Homes (2014)

    Early in his career, filmmaker Ramin Bahrani found an influential champion in the person of Roger Ebert, so it is only fitting that this Bahrani picture, one of his best, is dedicated to the late film critic. Ebert undoubtedly would have given an enthusiastic thumbs up to 99 Homes. Like The Big Short, another movie…