Flicks You Might Have Missed

Life Abundant: The Kiwi Edition by Andrew Collins Hunt for the Wilderpeople is one of those delightfully unnecessary films. The world neither needs nor deserves a film like this indie comedy from writer and director Taika Waititi, but we are undoubtedly better off for its having been made. The film is set in the beautiful, […]

{ 0 comments }

Go Big or . . . Trust Me, Just Go Big! by Andrew Collins It may be best to understand the charmed brilliance of Sing Street by considering the slice of life that The Sandlot captures from 1950s America. Apply the relationship to 1980s Ireland, and you’ll end up with something like this latest effort […]

{ 0 comments }

Family Business by Andrew Collins As autumn darkens toward winter, the sun sinks early and the nights run long. As we retreat to our couches and fireplace hearths, what better company than a melancholy tale? Here, find two recommendations for catharsis of spirits made pensive by the chill at year’s end. A Most Violent Year The title of this […]

{ 0 comments }

Sea Versus Stone by Andrew Collins Plenty of cliché terms come to mind after watching director Tomm Moore’s Song of the Sea: enchanting, spellbinding, magical. Any would be accurate, but none quite do it justice. It belongs to that rare breed of films that draws from the deep well of tradition, myth, and heroism, but […]

{ 0 comments }

Living Memory by Jack H. Simons and Erigena Sallaku Sometimes a movie comes along that the critics despise, the studio doesn’t promote, the theaters don’t show, and the audience never finds. Woman in Gold starring Helen Mirren is such a movie. Released in April, it had practically disappeared from theaters before the 4th of July weekend. […]

{ 0 comments }

Master Hustler by Jack Simons A movie comes along from time to time that astounds us with excellence in its individual parts, but when all the parts add together . . . not quite as much. American Hustle is a movie like that. As many times as I watch it, I discover only polished brilliance in […]

{ 1 comment }

Hitchcock Would be Proud by Andrew Collins Locke is the story of one man’s hour-long drive through hell. From the first frame to the last, the camera shows us only Ivan Locke (Tom Hardy) in his car as he drives to London, trying to uncross the stars suddenly aligned against him. As a construction contractor, Locke has the […]

{ 0 comments }

Headed for Destruction by James Roland Anthony Buckley found treasure in a dusty Pittsburgh warehouse. His journey spanned two years and three countries as he searched storage areas in New York, London, and Dublin before finally tracking down Wake in Fright, a film that he’d edited forty years before. From a large box labeled “For […]

{ 0 comments }

O Captain, My Rom-com by Andrew Collins  The flirting begins with a word game — each player tries to think of a word with more syllables than the last. Jack Marcus (Clive Owen), a top-notch prep school English teacher, has the obvious advantage, but Dina Delsanto (Juliette Binoche) is a stubborn New York art instructor. […]

{ 0 comments }

No Blameless Vestals Here by Andrew Collins  Before there was Inception, there was . . . a Jim Carrey rom-com? Something like that. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a 2004 project from director Michel Gondry, pushes the bounds of verisimilitude at only one point — in the world of the film, mind-wiping technology exists […]

{ 0 comments }