"Who we set out to be is not always who we become"
Famous war zone photographer Paul Prior (Matthew Macfadyen) comes home for his father's funeral. It doesn't take long for him to come face to face with painful reminders that he left for a reason. He makes a connection with Cecilia (Emily Barclay) a misfit teenager who he has mysterious personal ties to and tries to help her escape an unhappy life only to be confronted with another agony…
"It's what you make of the shit that counts"
Carol (Jennifer Jason Leigh) inherits a seedy rundown nightclub from her creepy uncle. She moves in while it's being renovated only to find the experience triggers traumatic memories that begin undermining her mental stability. She'll have to reckon with the past if she wants a chance at any kind of a meaningful future.
This is a fascinating failure of a film. There's clearly something at the heart of this that gets…
"Don't trust rumours"
Qiao (Zhao Tao) enjoys the lifestyle that comes with dating gang leader Bin (Liao Fan). Everything changes one fateful night when Bin is attacked by rival gang members and Qiao is sent to jail for scaring them off by firing Bin's illegal handgun and refusing to tell the police who owns the weapon. After her
sentence ends she attempts to return and pick things up where she left off, but things have changed.
Ash is Purest White,…
"Well...It's us."
Abigail Mason (Gena Rowlands) returns home to her estranged and stubborn mother Lucy (Bette Davis) to try and repair their broken relationship. Some wounds don't heal easily, but Abigail is as stubborn as her mother and won't let things go without a real effort.
There's a lot to dislike here. Probably the worst thing is the crummy, over sentimental soundtrack and borderline Hallmark level script (complete with the dreaded cough to foreshadow a serious illness) that uses some…
"Well hell's bells, Margaret, I didn't know that was a secret"
60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman (Al Pacino) is onto a huge story about big tobacco's coverup of the health problems cigarettes cause. He enlists the help of former industry executive Jeffrey Wigand (Russell Crowe) and tries to get him on the record as a whistleblower, despite the huge personal cost and massive pressure for him to just keep his mouth shut.
This could have easily just been a puff…
"Ancient wars were fought for spoils. Modern wars aren't meant to be won."
Undercover CIA agent Tom Harris (Gerard Butler) gets stuck in Afghanistan after a mission goes wrong and his cover gets burned. With the help of his translator Mo (Navid Negahban) and the few connections he has left, he has to fight his way to the extraction point in Kandahar.
The major problem with Kandahar is the pacing. It's front loaded with a bad black ops movie set…
"We belonged to each other"
Valentine Wilmot's (Jameson Thomas ) club is struggling. He's lost half of his star duo and his now solo lead dancer (and lover) Mabel (Gilda Gray) is struggling to attract new patrons or even keep the regulars around. So when he heads down to the kitchen to complain about a customer (Chalrles Laughton...who is in this for like 30 seconds despite his high billing) getting a dirty plate and sees Shosho (Anna May Wong) hypnotizing…
"Smell the wreckage of young minds"
Low budget movie kingpin Lawrence Woolsey(John Goodman) rolls into Key West, Florida at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis with his latest sensational film, Mant. Woolsey uses the tension of real life to whip up publicity and make the screening of his man-ant monster movie a big event, cashing in and providing the service of giving people a fear they can escape from at the same time. Horror movie loving teenager Gene (Simon…
"Being a King is not always easy"
Luchino Visconti's portrait of 19th Century Bavarian King Ludwig II (Helmut Berger).
Berger gives a spellbinding central performance showing Ludwig's slow unravelling. He's a man haunted by loneliness born of an unrequited love, desperately seeking an elusive purpose and meaning to bring a meaning and satisfaction. A man who feels constrained by duty and seeks a type of freedom that doesn't exist. The slow physical and mental decay over time is astonishing. A…
(Spoiler ahead)
On the outskirts of a small town it's said there lived an aging woman who loved her two dogs more than anything in the world. Striving to achieve oneness with nature, her aching heart brimmed with the sorrows of the creatures so callously treated by her fellow man. Drop by drop it filled with anguish until finally it overflowed, spilling wrath and ruin. A corrosive, unavoidable splash that dissolved their apathy. No longer could those who brought such…
"I promise you you'll be in perfect health before you die"
(Thanks to theironcupcake for bringing this one to my attention with their excellent and glowing review, which you can read here)
Josh Baker (Eric Roberts) is in the middle of trying to pick up Cheryl (Janine Turner) on the street when she collapses. A strangely antiquated ambulance arrives on the scene and takes her away, but Josh can't get her out of his head. He sets out to track…
Soccer player Francis (Isaach de Bankole) is on the run after fixing a game. He chooses what he thinks is a low key farm where he can fly under the radar and work for room and board only to find himself trapped in a modern slave camp and struggles to escape.
It's always great to see Claire Denis regular Bankole, and especially in a lead role. He's easily the best part of this movie and probably the only reason to…