Category: Genre

  • Death Sentence (2007)

    As trashy vigilante fantasies go, you could do a lot worse than Death Sentence. That might sound like damning with faint praise, and perhaps it is, but director James Wan deserves credit for dressing up this Death Wish-knockoff with honest-to-goodness visual flair.  Kevin Bacon lends a welcome intensity to the role of Nick Hume, a well-heeled business…

  • The Great Debaters (2007)

    Among the many intellectual exercises connected to competitive debate is the ability to defend stances that, at first blush, might seem indefensible. I know; I debated in high school and remember many a contest assailing the evils of seatbelts and motorcycle helmets. Judging by The Great Debaters, however, you wouldn’t think that debate requires much…

  • 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007)

    4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days is a starkly told tale of abortion and rape in the waning years of Romania under the oppressive Ceauşescu regime. Winner of the Palme d’Or at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, it is all the more brutally effective because it is so quotidian, chronicling a day in the…

  • The Greatest Game Ever Played (2005)

    If it didn’t happen to be true, you might dismiss it as feel-good fantasy. But part of what makes The Greatest Game Ever Played so appealing is that this is a real-life Cinderella story tailor-made for classic drama. Based on the 2002 book by Mark Frost (who also wrote the screenplay adaptation), the film details…

  • Before Midnight (2013)

    In Before Midnight, the third and final installment of director Richard Linklater’s odes to romance, there’s a sly bit that reflects the personal baggage that fans of this trilogy brought to this film. Jesse (Ethan Hawke), the writer we’ve watched meet, fall for and settle down with Celine (Julie Delpy), tells some colleagues about a…

  • Frost/Nixon (2008)

    When Richard Nixon sought to repair his reputation with television interviews in 1977, his aides selected an interviewer they were confident would be a pushover. David Frost, a lightweight British TV talk-show host with a taste for the good life, was more accustomed to interviewing the Bee Gees than disgraced world leaders. As the riveting…

  • Blood in the Face (1991)

    The bogeymen of our world haven’t changed much since the initial release of Blood in the Face, a documentary that opens a window on the subculture of American neo-Nazis, Klansmen and assorted white supremacists. The ugliness of white nationalism still thrives – hell, probably more so than those 20th century pre-MAGA neo-Nazis ever could have…

  • Spider Baby or, the Maddest Story Ever Told (1967)

    The Merrye children of Spider Baby or, the Maddest Story Ever Told don’t seem like they would have much to be merry about. The unfortunate brood suffers from a rare neurological disorder particular to their bloodline. As a voiceover narrator helpfully explain in the opening, at around the age of 10 or so, Merrye family…