In “Ava” Jessica Chastain plays an assassin who has a weird fascination with chatting with her targets before and after she offs them. This seems to annoy Colin Farrell who believes she has become a liability to their ‘organization’. He puts an open contract on her life much to the chagrin of her mentor John … Continue reading
“Au revoir les enfants”, which means “Goodbye Children”, is a 1987 Oscar nominated drama from French filmmaker Louis Malle. This autobiographical film is unquestionably Malle’s most personal project and its story is taken from actual events of his childhood. He wrote, produced, and directed this stirring film that grounds its storytelling in authenticity and in … Continue reading
“Wasp Network” was going to be a tough movie to make for any filmmaker wanting to stick reasonably close to the facts. That’s because the actual true story is a tangled web of characters, organizations, and allegiances. For that reason French writer-director Olivier Assayas deserves a ton of credit for sticking close to the true … Continue reading
It’s been a rough run for Gerard Butler but you gotta hand it to him. He keeps making movies. During this spell of not-so-great films he has fought terrorists, Egyptian gods, mind-controlling gamers, even a planet-killing superstorm. So it shouldn’t surprise us to see him take on fragments of a comet careening towards earth in … Continue reading
Will Ferrell works in absurdity the way Leonardo da Vinci worked in oils or Michelangelo in marble. It’s his chosen means of artistic expression, and like paint across a canvas, nuttiness on the screen is his creative language. Unfortunately for Ferrell there haven’t been many Mona Lisas or Davids. And “masterpiece” isn’t a word I … Continue reading
When it comes to the new French-Japanese family drama “The Truth”, they had me at Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche, and Ethan Hawke. Toss in that it is written, directed and edited by acclaimed Japanese auteur Hirokazu Kore-eda and you have one of my most eagerly anticipated movies of the year. With such craft in front … Continue reading
Keith & the Movies 