A personal journal of film and documentary reviews, and reviews of anything else that intrigues me.
Reviews of films made in Canada and United States including all films made by Hollywood.
Duncan Jones, “Moon” (2009) Like father, like son, no? … decades ago David Bowie sang songs of doomed astronaut Major Tom and in 2009 son Duncan…
Jay Roach, “Trumbo” (2015) This biopic of Hollywood screen-writer Dalton Trumbo’s career from the late 1940s to 1970 is a vehicle for a survey of the…
Charles Haid, “Sally Hemings: An American Scandal” (2000) More notable for the performances of its lead actors Carmen Ejogo as Sally Hemings and Sam Neill as…
Charlie Kaufmann and Duke Johnson, “Anomalisa” (2015) Not often does a film come along that encapsulates in its appearance and format its themes of human alienation,…
Middle Eastern Films, North American Films
Gavin Hood, “Rendition” (2007) Rarely does Hollywood release a film that attempts to address and deal with issues critical of US government foreign and domestic policy…
Tim Burton, “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” (2007) US film director Tim Burton has long been fascinated with non-conformists and outsiders, especially those…
Tom McCarthy, “Spotlight” (2015) On rare occasions Hollywood can still demonstrate an ability to make good films about muck-raking journalism and Tom McCarthy’s “Spotlight”, based on…
Adam McKay, “The Big Short” (2015) How do you tell the story behind the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the massive housing bubble that led to the…
Charles Chaplin, “The Gold Rush” (1925, revised 1942) In reality, the 1898 Klondike Gold Rush must have been a harsh, grim and ultimately disappointing experience for…
James Vanderbilt, “Truth” (2015) An ambitious film for James Vanderbilt’s directorial debut, though he is well known in Hollywood as a script-writer, “Truth” is a fictional…