It made me grin from ear to ear when I heard the news. **J.K. Simmons**, the longtime working character actor — who is most visible right now as the guy from those [Farmers Insurance commercials][1] — is hosting “Saturday Night Live” next weekend. It is a testament to the power ...
There’s a nearly wordless scene early on in the disturbing tragedy **“Foxcatcher,”** now playing at [Liberty Hall,][1] that beautifully sets up the relationship between brothers and wrestlers Mark Schultz (**Channing Tatum**) and Dave Schultz (**Mark Ruffalo**). They grapple with one another during a training exercise at their blue-collar gym, and ...
There are films that are “important,” and there are films that are personal, and it's rare the two intersect. I put the word “important” in quotation marks because that connotation denotes somebody second-guessing what they think an audience needs to see. Most “important” movies have a historical aspect to them, ...
Last week when I posted a news item on Facebook about the controversial film **“The Interview”** being reinstated into 331 theaters and VOD on Christmas Day, my friends were split into two camps. About half wondered if the Sony hack had all been a part of some long-term marketing campaign/conspiracy. ...
“Unbroken,” the WWII drama directed by **Angelina Jolie** now playing at Southwind 12, is based on the best-selling nonfiction book by **Laura Hillenbrand** — which itself is based on the extraordinary story of **Louis Zamperini**, who died this summer at age 97. The movie wants to be about courage and ...
It could have been pretentious as hell: An aimless young woman, searching for herself, discovers her own courage by hiking 1,100 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail alone. That’s pretty much the one-sentence description of **“Wild,”** now playing at [Liberty Hall][1] and starring **Reese Witherspoon** as Cheryl Strayed, the real-life ...
The mammoth cinematic achievement of **Peter Jackson** — adapting the rich world of **J.R.R. Tolkien**’s Middle-earth since 2001 — will always come with an asterisk; a sad irony. Turning “The Lord of the Rings” novels into a filmic trilogy was possible only with the latest in computer-generated graphics. It was ...
The Kansas City Film Critics Circle named **Alejandro González Iñárritu**'s genre-defying **"Birdman"** the best film of 2014, as the second oldest movie critics' organization in the country voted for the 48th time Sunday. In addition to best film, "Birdman" also won awards for best actor (**Michael Keaton**), best supporting actor ...
Hype is a dangerous thing. It’s a double-edged sword, because any movie studio publicist will agree that buzz helps get people in the theater, but then high expectations from an audience can sink a mediocre film. That’s exactly what happened when I saw **Chris Rock**’s **“Top Five,”** which started a ...
On the surface, **“Whiplash”** and **“Nightcrawler,”** two of the year’s best and most thrilling movies, don’t have anything in common. One is about a jazz drummer (**Miles Teller**) at the most prestigious music school in the country and the other is about a weirdo (**Jake Gyllenhaal**) who trolls police scanners ...
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It made me grin from ear to ear when I heard the news. **J.K. Simmons**, the longtime working character actor — who is most visible right now as the guy from those [Farmers Insurance commercials][1] — is hosting “Saturday Night Live” next weekend. It is a testament to the power ...
