Vikram Ghandi. That’s the most guru-like name you’re likely to ever hear, and it’s a real name. The guru part? Well, that’s different. This Ghandi was born and raised in northern New Jersey and speaks English as well as anyone. But when he wants, he can make you think he’s straight from India. In fact,…
Shelley Winters gained about 35 pounds for what turned out to be a Best Supporting Actress nomination for the 1972 film The Poseidon Adventure. Conversely, Matthew McConaughey dropped about 35 pounds for his Best Actor nomination in Dallas Buyers Club, a film with six total nominations. Both die by the end of their respective films, and both…
Let’s get a few things out of the way about The Monuments Men: Yes, it’s a true story, much more so than the usual “Based on/Inspired by a true story/true events.” According to the Smithsonian Institute’s website, the film is estimated at about 80% accurate, but of course producers had to adjust things for the…
I have said many times that I love time-travel stories. I also have a great affinity for Rachel McAdams and British humor/humour, so I expected to very much enjoy About Time. The problem is that with the same brush with which writer/director Richard Curtis used to paint some originality with time travel, he also painted…
Before seeing Lee Daniels’ The Butler, I had several reasons to dislike it. First, I don’t like anyone’s name before the title. I would not like Martin Scorcese’s Goodfellas or Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, thus I would not like anyone’s anything. Second, any film with Oprah Winfrey usually belongs on basic cable. …
We sometimes have experiences as children that we don’t realize are not experiences that all children have. Sometimes, we think either every child, or maybe no other child, will go through the same positive and/or negative events. Some of my most treasured childhood memories were gathering with family, aunts, uncles, and cousins, at a summer…
“Starting a story is easy. Finishing it is not.” – Me. “A story goes like this: Have a character. Put him up a tree. Throw rocks at him as he tries to get down. Eventually, he needs a ladder to get down. But if that ladder doesn’t make sense, your story sucks.” – a college…
Shakespeare, and others, believed that every good story must have an unusual coincidence that the reader must accept, no matter how improbable. I don’t know enough to agree or disagree with Shakespeare, so I’m going to give both him and Kalifornia the benefit of the doubt. A writer, Brian Kessler (David Duchovny) and his girlfriend…
A preface: I occasionally look at other reviews before writing my own because – let’s face it – sometimes we miss things during a two-hour film, and it helps to check around. This time, however, I haven’t missed anything. Of the reviews I’ve read, about 95% have been very negative. Of those 95%, about 100%…
When the credits began to roll at the end of Prisoners, a teenage girl behind me said, “I’m writing a letter to someone because there are too many unanswered questions.” My first reaction was, “Shut up.” By the time I got to my car, I thought, “Maybe she’s right.” Prisoners is a fairly solid suspense film, provided you…
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