Great Movies
Far Flungers
Ape Shall Not Kill Ape: A Look at the Entire Apes Franchise
With the imminent arrival of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, a Far-Flung Correspondent rewatched every Apes film to date from Charlton Heston to Mark Wahlberg, and beyond.
With the imminent arrival of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, a Far-Flung Correspondent rewatched every Apes film to date from Charlton Heston to Mark Wahlberg, and beyond.
Chaz Ebert lists her favorite films of 2017.
The RogerEbert.com picks for the ten best films of 2017.
"Mudbound," "Darkest Hour," "Lady Bird" and other exciting new films received special presentations at the Virginia festival.
A preview of what's playing at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, including some recommendations from what we've seen so far.
Premieres, Midnights, Special Events and more have been announced for next month's Sundance Film Festival.
New titles on Blu-ray and DVD including "The Martian," "Mr. Robot" and "Straight Outta Compton."
An overview of the films that will be theatrically released in the 2015 fall season.
The June 2015 installment of Bright Wall/Dark Room featuring an in-depth analysis of the controversy regarding "Zero Dark Thirty."
Britney Spears is a feminist role model; The plot of "Hellboy 3"; "Black Hole" appears in "Apes"; Zohra Sehgal dies at 102; The tallest woman in the world.
Different as these two features may be, "Listen Up Philip" and "The Better Angels" both manage to respectfully pay homage without stripping themselves of their own voices.
The star of Kathryn Bigelow's "Zero Dark Thirty" (2012) is Kathryn Bigelow. This film is intensely suspenseful, even though we already know the narrative and its ending, or perhaps because we already know. Its drama is all the more compelling because, when listing out all the plot points, this is actually a very straightforward, almost dull story about a chase that, when it completed, was mostly irrelevant. Even the raid on Usama bin Laden's compound was more of a careful trek through a labyrinth than a shootout. Moreover, we know what happens; we are now watching how.
Marie writes: Christmas is almost upon us, and with its impending arrival comes the sound of children running free-range through the snow, while grown-ups do battle indoors in the seasonal quest to find the perfect gift...
The sounds of Cannes usually begin for me before daylight, when I'm awakened around 5:00 am by the noise of the big motorized awning of the bistro that's directly under my window being rolled down for the day. That's quickly followed by the watery roaring of the street-cleaning machine as it drives up and down the little plaza where the bistro sets up its outdoor tables and chairs. Then, comes the metallic scrape of dozens of chairs being dragged into place. Finally, some natural sounds: birds, including the big screeching gulls that fly inland from the waterfront a few blocks away. The alarm goes off and it's time to start another festival day by arriving at the Palais at 8:00 am to get a seat for the 8:30 am press screening.
"Lawless" by John Hillcoat, the first of four American films in the year's competition, premiered this morning. Set in Franklin, Virginia, in 1931, this is a Prohibition-era tale of a real family, the Bonderants, who became local legends as notorious moonshiners. Legend is the operative word here, as this is a highly romanticized story of three macho brothers and their apparent talent for besting the law, the competition, or death, as the case may be. This is film in which the good guys can be beaten to a pulp and be OK the next day, or take a shotgun blast to the gut from fore to aft but still get up and walk.
The cast is easy on the eyes: Tom Hardy as the eldest brother Forrest, who, as reputation has it, cannot be killed; Jason Clarke as Howard, the fearless middle brother who's batshit crazy when he's been consuming the product; and Shia Lebeouf as the youngest brother Jack, an aspiring lady's man who still has a lot to learn about the family business. Love interests include Jessica Chastain as a former fan-dancer from Chicago who shows up at the Bonderant enclave seeking the quiet life (!), and Mia Wasikowska as the sheltered daughter of a fundamentalist preacher.
