For the month of February...

Best Film of The Month: Pieces of April (2003)

Worst Film of the Month: Running With Scissors (2006)

February 26, 2007

A Beautiful Mind (2001)
Director: Ron Howard
Writer: Sylvia Nasar and Akiva Goldsman
Starring: Russell Crowe, Ed Harris, and Jennifer Connellly
Co-Starring: Christopher Plummer, Paul Bettany, Adam Goldberg, and Josh Lucas
Description: From the heights of notoriety to the depths of depravity, John Forbes Nash, Jr. experienced it all. A mathematical genius, he made an astonishing discovery early in his career and stood on the brink of international acclaim. But the handsome and arrogant Nash soon found himself on a painful and harrowing journey of self-discovery. After many years of struggle, he eventually triumphed over his tragedy, and finally - late in life - received the Nobel Prize.
Rating: B+
In a word... twisty.

February 24, 2007

Pieces of April (2003)
Director: Peter Hedges
Writer: Peter Hedges
Starring: Katie Holmes, Derek Luke, and Oliver Platt
Co-Starring: Alison Phil, John Gallagher, Jr., and Patricia Clarkson
Description: April Burns (Holmes) invites her family to Thanksgiving dinner at her teeny apartment on New York's Lower East Side. As they make their way to the city from suburban Pennsylvania, April must endure a comedy of errors - like finding out her oven doesn't work - in order to pull off the big event.
Rating: A-
In a word... unconventional.

February 17, 2007

Say Anything... (1989)*
Director: Cameron Crowe
Writer: Cameron Crowe
Starring: John Cusack, Ione Skye, and John Mahoney
Co-Starring: Lili Taylor, Amy Brooks, and Pamela Adlon
Description: An improbable couple meets after high school graduation and must deal with their friends, family, and other pressures just to stay together. Lloyd Dobler is an average kickboxer with a good heart but limited ambition. Diane Court is an aloof genius who is very closely protected by her father. When Diane gets a scholarship to study in England, she has a weighty decision to make.
Rating: A
In a word... cozy.

February 15, 2007

Hotaru no haka (1988)
Director: Isao Takahata
Writers: Akiyuki Nosaka and Isao Takahata
Starring: Tsutomu Tatsumi and Ayano Shiraishi
Co-Starring: Yoshiko Shinohara and Akemi Yamaguchi
Description: Setsuko and Seita are brother and sister living in wartime Japan. After their mother is killed in an air raid they find a temporary home with relatives. Having quarreled with their aunt they leave the city and make their home in an abandoned shelter. While their father's destiny who was a soldier is unknown the two must depend on each other to somehow keep a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs. When everything is in short supply, they gradually succumb to hunger and their only entertainment is the light of the fireflies.
Rating: B+
In a word... powerful.

February 15, 2007

Running with Scissors (2006)
Director: Ryan Murphy
Writers: Ryan Murphy and Augusten Burroughs
Starring: Annette Bening, Brian Cox, Joseph Fiennes, Evan Rachel Wood, Alec Baldwin, and Joseph Cross
Co-Starring: Jill Clayburgh, Gwyneth Paltrow, Gabrielle Union, and Patrick Wilson
Description: The story of how a boy was abandoned by his mother and how he, later, abandoned her. The year he'll be 14, the parents of Augusten Burroughs (1965- ) divorce, and his mother, who thinks of herself as a fine poet on the verge of fame, delivers him to the eccentric household of her psychiatrist, Dr. Finch. During that year, Augusten avoids school, keeps a journal, and practices cosmetology. His mother's mental illness worsens, he takes an older lover, he finds friendship with Finch's younger daughter, and he's the occasional recipient of gifts from an unlikely benefactor. Can he survive to come of age?
Rating: C-
In a word... book.

February 13, 2007

A Hard Day's Night (1964)
Director: Richard Lester
Writer: Alun Owen
Starring: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr
Co-Starring: Wilfrid Brambell, Norman Rossington, and John Junkin
Description: "A Hard Day's Night" captured Beatlemania as it was happening, and more than four decades later, it remains a peerlessly zesty rock 'n' roll fable. Director Richard Lester's jump cuts now seem exhilarating as Jean-Luc Godard's, John Lennon's wisecracks as well timed as Groucho Marx's. Yet this original Fab Four movie is innocent in a way no other later rock 'n' roll film could be, and much of the credit must go to the thousands of screaming teenage girls in the audience--the ones who's lips form such magical words as "John!" and "Paul!" and "George!" and "Ringo!" while tears stream down their cheeks. When Lennon and McCartney shake their mop tops in unison after the line "She loves you, and you know you should be glad!" it sends the audience into hyperspace. Watching these Liverpool Lads get their first taste of audience frenzy, you understand why the '60s had to happen.
Rating: A-
In a word... innocent.

February 13, 2007

Finding Neverland (2004)
Director: Marc Forster
Writers: Allan Knee and David Magee
Starring: Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet
Co-Starring: Julie Christie, Radha Mitchell, Dustin Hoffman, and Freddie Highmore
Description: London, 1903: four lads, three women, and J.M. Barrie in the year he writes "Peter Pan." After one of his plays flops, Barrie meets four boys and their widowed mother in the park. During the next months, the child-like Barrie plays with the boys daily, and their imaginative games give him ideas for a play. Simultaneously, a friendship deepens with Sylvia, the lads' mother, to the chagrin of his wife Mary, with whom he spends little time (separate bedrooms), the widow's mother, and high society, which gossips about his attraction to the widow and to her sons. As Sylvia's health worsens, Barrie's ties to the boys strengthen and he must find a way to take his muse to Neverland.
Rating: B
In a word... otherworldly.

February 10, 2007

Pather Panchali (1955)
Director: Satyajit Ray
Writers: Satyajit Ray and Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay
Starring: Kanu Bannerjee, Karuna Bannerjee, Subir Bannerjee, and Uma Das Gupta
Co-Starring: Chunibala Devi, Runki Banerjee, Reba Devi, and Aparna Devi
Description: Sometime in the early years of the century, a boy, Apu, is born to a poor Brahmin family in a village in Bengal. The father, a poet and priest, cannot earn enough to keep his family going. Apu's sister, Durga, is forever stealing guavas from the neighbour's orchards. All these add to the daily struggles of the mother's life, notwithstanding her constant bickering with old aunt who lives with the family.
Rating: B+
In a word... disappointing.

February 9, 2007

Foul Play (1978)
Director: Colin Higgins
Writer: Colin Higgins
Starring: Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase
Co-Starring: Burgess Meredith and Rachel Roberts
Description: When, unbeknownst to Gloria, a microfilm cassette is left with her by a dying agent, she becomes entangled in a complicated series of events. She's pursued by a dwarf and an albino, and becomes convinced that they are out to kill her. Finally, with the help of San Francisco detective Tony Carlson, she begins to turn the tables on her pursuers. It becomes clear that the nerfarious crew after her are plotting a dastardly deed indeed - to assassinate the Pope as he visits the city to see The Mikado. Gloria and Tony must race against time to prevent this terrible crime.
Rating: C
In one word... pointless.

February 5, 2007

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)*
Director: Wes Anderson
Writers: Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson
Starring: Gene Hackman, Anjelica Huston, Ben Stiller, Gwyneth Paltrow, Luke and Owen Wilson, Bill Murray, and Danny Glover
Co-Starring: Seymour Cassel, Kumar Pallana, Grant Rosenmeyer, and Jonah Meyerson
Description: Three grown prodigies, all with a unique genius of some kind, and their mother are staying at the family household. Their father, Royal had left them long ago, and comes back to make things right with his family.
Rating: A+
In one word... impossible.

February 3, 2007

The Philadelphia Story (1941)
Director: George Cukor
Writers: Phillip Barry, Donald Ogden Stewart, and Waldo Salt.
Starring: Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, and James Stewart
Co-Starring: Ruth Hussey, John Howard, Roland Young, John Halliday, Mary Nash, and Virginia Weilder
Description: Philadelphia heiress Tracy Lord throws out her playboy husband C.K. Dexter Haven shortly after their marriage. Two years later, Tracy is about to marry respectable George Kittredge whilst Dexter has been working for "Spy" magazine. Dexter arrives at the Lord's mansion the day before the wedding with writer Mike Connor and photographer Liz Imbrie, determined to spoil things.
Rating: B+
In a word... bantering.