Movies with music written by Rolfe Kent

Sideways is from Alexander Payne (Election, About Schmidt), whose films simultaneously satirize and observe life in America. Unlike David Lynch, who uses saws and butcher knives to dissect the American dream, Payne prefers a scalpel. Lynch often ri...

Up in the Air is a wonderful little film (the word "little" being relative, of course). It was the best thing I saw at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival, and it stand up as well away from the peculiar atmosphere of the festival as it di...

Election becomes the first droplet in the recent deluge of teen comedies to score a palpable hit. In the wake of Can't Hardly Wait, She's All That, Never Been Kissed, and about a dozen others, Election arrives like a desperately needed cool breez...

It's not hard to be enthusiastic about The Matador, an uncommon buddy film starring Pierce Brosnan and Greg Kinnear. The movie has a nicely modulated mix of comedy and pathos, but succeeds as much because of the two lead performances as Richard She...

Welcome to George Clooney season. Those who find the actor, who has been described by some as a modern day Cary Grant, engaging will have reason to smile as Hollywood begins its annual push toward the Oscars. Clooney will bring his winning person...

The average movie about the abortion debate tends to be preachy, melodramatic, and unbearably solemn. So, it comes as something of a shock that the latest venture to the front line of the pro-life/pro-choice battle is actually a comedy. Director/...

When you're young, you live your life looking forward. The future looms larger and more full of promise than the past, and everyone not afflicted with incurable pessimism believes that the best is yet to come. But all things age, and die, and wit...

For a movie about small people, Downsizing certainly thinks big…too big, perhaps. Director/co-writer Alexander Payne has done such a good job of world-building that there are far too many ideas, subplots, and opportunities for one two-hour f...

Thank You for Smoking is the feature debut of Jason (son of Ivan) Reitman, who has assembled an impressive cast. In addition to Aaron Eckhart, who has the lead, the credit list includes the following names: Katie Holmes, Cameron Bright, Sam Elliot,...

Legally Blonde fits into the niche occupied by motion pictures like Clueless, Dick, and Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion - that is to say, films in which an airhead heroine captures our affection and overcomes her vacuous disability to trium...