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The events depicted in The Trial of the Chicago 7 occurred in 1968-69. Aaron Sorkin began working on the screenplay in 2007. But, oh how relevant the story chronicled in this movie feels today... What is it that George Santayana wrote in The L...

Nostalgia can be a wonderful thing, especially when a director tweaks it and plays with it. With Nebraska, Alexander Payne, working from a screenplay credited to Bob Nelson, targets a very specific slice of Americana that has often been romanticize...

The Descendants may be director Alexander Payne's finest outing to date. The man who began his career behind the camera with withering satires (Citizen Ruth, Election) has moved into dramatic comedies (About Schmidt, Sideways) that simultaneously ...

"Et tu, Brute?" The Ides of March illustrates the universally acknowledged truism that nothing can corrupt idealism more completely than politics. The sad thing about this American tragedy is that not a single twist, turn, or betrayal is difficu...

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...

It’s said that the sports movie format works best when telling a true story. Director James Mangold, after having spent some time in the X-Men universe (he helmed both The Wolverine and Logan), has returned to the real world to direct two A-...

This is 40 has the feel of one of those French "family comedies" - sort of like the kind of thing brought to the screen by Cedric Klapisch, except with more profanity and vulgarity. There's not much in the way of a conventional narrative. This is 4...

The action/comedy genre has grown in popularity over the past couple of decades, but it remains difficult for filmmakers to find a workable balance between the seemingly disparate elements of the recipe. Too much action often results in marginaliz...

Reaction to The Weather Man may depend upon an individual's ability to tolerate spending 100 minutes in the company of an unpleasant protagonist. There's no doubt this can be an uncomfortable experience, but it can also be rewarding for those who ...

When I spoke to Roger Ebert shortly before first seeing Walk the Line, he remarked that he knew almost all of Johnny Cash's songs by heart. I cannot make the same claim. I'm familiar with a few of them - mostly those that got radio play - but many ...