2013 was not the year you thought it was. The prevailing storyline of the first eight months of the year was that Hollywood was broken, as evidence by a high number of big-budget flops: Jack the Giant Slayer, The Lone Ranger, White House Down, After Earth, R.I.P.D., etc. But underneath the studio failures burned the…
“Philomena,” a winning new dramedy from director Stephen Frears, is a prime example of a storytelling technique known as the Trojan Horse. Like the Greeks at the gates of Troy, the film uses a genial, familiar tone and a well-worn genre to sneak in an edgy political message to an audience that might otherwise be…
When The Hunger Games was released into theaters in 2012, critics spent as much time debating its politics as they did reviewing the film. Almost everyone felt that the film had a partisan message, but few agreed as to which side it was actually on. Writers from Forbes and Fox News saw the film, with…
A lot of new followers this week, so I thought I would take this opportunity to welcome you all and share some of my latest work. Most of my work is now published elsewhere – this blog has become a place for the occasional post that doesn’t quite fit on other sites – but I…
This new report on gun violence in film has been getting a lot of play the last few days. Analyzing the incidents of gun violence in the top-grossing American films, the authors concluded that the incidents of gun violence in movies rated PG-13 have nearly tripled since 1985. Last year – for the first time…
Ender’s Game is famous for, among other things, the long, winding road it took to the big screen. Adapted from the “unfilmable” young adult novel by Orson Scott Card, many producers have tried and failed to get the teen sci-fi flick off the ground. But with its thematic similarities to The Hunger Games and its…
Since he previously reviewed “We Steal Secrets,” a documentary about Wikileaks and Julian Assange, I invited Reel Change guest critic Anthony Flores back to tackle “The Fifth Estate,” which opened last Friday. Here is his review. From the name alone, The Fifth Estate makes a big claim about its subject, the Wikileaks website. The name…
At first glance, All Is Lost sounds more like a film school assignment than a successful movie. Can you tell a complete story with one character, just a handful of lines of dialogue, and long, slow stretches with little action – and still keep your audience’s attention? Writer/director J.C. Chandor’s gripping survival tale answers resoundingly…
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