Julie and Julia
Sometimes It Takes Two Books to Make One Movie Starring: Amy Adams, Meryl Streep By Tom Bevis You all know about blogging. Truly the next step in publishing, blogs (cued from the term “web logs”) enable a wide range or writers to share their thoughts and ideas to thousands of others across the world wide web, writers who otherwise might not have access to such an audience. In recent years, blogs have exploded in popularity, and a...
Il Divo
Government Corruption: Cute! Starring: Toni Servillo, Anna Bonaiuto By Robert Patrick Il Divo might be an adult contemporary band in the United States and England, but to the people of Italy, the moniker Il Divo refers to the country’s often disparaged former prime minister, Giulio Andreotti. When you look at the doddering Andreotti, you may question where the diabolical nickname came from. The former Prime Minister of Italy, with his...
Little Ashes
Pattinson Sucks – Again Starring: Robert Pattinson, Javier Beltran By Robert Patrick Little Ashes is about braggart painter and purported intellect Salvador Dali. The movie, considering the subject matter, should be full of traumatic incidents, wacky nuances, and artistic revelry. The strange, protruding mustache is there, twisting upward like some sort of mangled vine. The idiosyncratic quirkiness, so underlined by Dali’s...
Che
Earnesto Goes to Bolivia Starring: Benicio Del Toro, Franka Potente By Robert Patrick At the time of his death, Earnesto “Che” Guevara was not a student of popular western history. If the revolutionary had been, he would’ve known to never ride into Bolivia with guns blazing – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid had tried this a good number of years earlier to no avail. Instead, Che found himself muscled in on by the Bolivian...
Notorious
Your Words Just Hypnotize Me Starring: Gravy, Derek Luke By Robert Patrick Christopher George Latore Wallace, most famously acknowledged by his moniker as the Notorious B.I.G., was a behemoth hip-hop artist known for his baritone drawl and lyrical prowess. Notorious’ booming voice, so representative of the rapper’s larger than life frame, was first introduced to the world on his successful 1994 debut album, Ready to Die. Surely,...
Waltz With Bashir
Standing at the fore of Israel’s burgeoning conscience, filmmaker and former Israeli Army soldier Ari Folman creates an intensely personal animated documentary regarding his complicity in the massacre at the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in 1982 Lebanon—and in the process questions the moral fabric of a nation forged out of tragedy with devastating conclusions. A meeting with his childhood friend,...
Anita O’Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer
The Needle and the Record Featuring: Anita O’Day, Buddy Bregman By Allie Willis As a relative rookie to jazz music, I was slightly surprised at how instantaneously my feet seemed to disconnect from my concrete self, how suddenly they were captured by Anita O’Day’s smoky and sultry rhythms, only to be reluctantly released after an hour and a half toe-tapping routine by the ending credits. A captivating documentary detailing the...
Frost/Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon, forever imbued in American minds with his dog-eyed features and syrupy drawl, will be remembered as a presidential charlatan; someone too concerned with his own fears to adequately run the country. Someone who, in the minds of political scholars and average citizens, will have his image washed away by the petulant waves of Watergate. In Ron Howard’s Frost/Nixon, we see the former president, so commonly...
Milk
Revolution at 24 Frames a Second Starring: Sean Penn, James Franco By Robert Patrick Gus Van Sant opens his newest film with Harvey Milk, a gay rights icon, making what seems like an expositive eulogy on an old tape recorder. The device hisses, as if to snake charm Milk into telling his story. “If a bullet should enter my brain, let the bullet destroy every closet door.” Milk demands into the microphone. Here, in a very atypical Van...
Changeling
Eastwood’s Sweeping Drama Goes for Gold Starring: Angelina Jolie, J. Michael Straczynski By Colleen Dillon Since I saw Changeling, over a week ago, I have been really unmotivated to write this review. I feel guilty because I like Clint Eastwood for some reason that allows me to appreciate his talent despite his stiff, John Wayne-type one-trick-pony acting. He is an icon from an era where, now, most other actors of his status are...
