Reviews

A straight forward homage to sacrifice and heroism dramatizes the attempt to honor an Air Force Pararescue soldier William Pitsenbarger (known as Pits) lowered into Vietnam’s Xa Cam My jungle in 1966 and died while saving many lives during a bloody ambush. The Last Full Measure stars Sebastian Stan, William Hurt, and Samuel L. Jackson […]

An H. P.  Lovecraft short story gets some vivid, treatment thanks to producers like Elijah Wood, director Richard Stanley, and Nicolas Cage (sounding at times like he did in Peggy Sue Got Married) set in a rural enclave of the Bay State.  Color Out of Space might not be a cult favorite but it will […]

Terrence Malick works persuasively from real life accounts of Franz Jagerstater in his latest ruminative drama, arguably his most involving since The Tree of Life. A Hidden Life is basically a two handler featuring August Diehl (Inglourious Basterds) and Valerie Pachner as Austrian peasant farmer Franz and beloved missus Franziska.  It has a political slant […]

An unhurried death row drama doesn’t have the emotional power of a Dead Man Walking but is often involving and intelligent in how it unfolds as a character study. Even if naysayers will poke into its redundant and overwrought tendencies. The estimable Alfre Woodard stars in Clemency which has a grim, if affecting realism about it, […]

The continuation of a horror franchise hardly does justice to Takeshi Shimizu’s original concept which began at the beginning of the millennium (which was remade by him to much financial success back in 2004 staring Sara Michelle Gellar). This reboot or reawakening (if you prefer) of The Grudge provides an invitation to a haunting, Psychological […]