Ryan Coogler's "Fruitvale Station'

If we love Tony Soprano, why not Oscar?

Ryan Coogler's Fruitvale Station, based on the true tragic story of a young black man gunned down by a rogue cop, pushes all the predictable emotional buttons. But its message is too easy to swallow.

Ilene Raymond Rush

Jul 30, 2013 · Articles · 3 minute read

A detour along my road to romance

In search of mature love (but finding only immature lovers)

As a devotee of great romantic novels and movies, I spent decades searching for D.H. Lawrence's sensuous gardener from Lady Chatterley's Lover. After seeing Never Again, I switched to exterminators. Would you believe I'm still searching?

Maralyn Lois Polak

Jul 23, 2013 · Articles · 5 minute read

Laurel Hill's "Cinema in the Cemetery'

This cemetery really comes to life

Give Laurel Hill Cemetery credit for an astute marketing perception: Cemeteries, like horror films, offer a safe, contained and even exciting way to tap into our deepest fears and anxieties.

Kayleigh Butera

Jul 23, 2013 · Articles · 3 minute read

A feminist "Hannah Arendt' (3rd review)

A thinking woman in an old boys' club

Hannah Arendt may have been wrong about Adolf Eichmann, but she was right about the banality of evil. And much of the verbal abuse she suffered came not from Holocaust survivors but from male academics who resented her intrusion into their domain. Hannah Arendt. A film directed by Margarethe Von Trotta. At the Ritz at the Bourse, 400 Ranstead St., (215) 440-1181 or www.landmarktheatres.com.

Victor L. Schermer

Jul 09, 2013 · Articles · 7 minute read

"Hannah Arendt,' ill-served again (2nd review)

When bad movies happen to profound philosophers

Attempting more than a courtroom drama of the Eichmann trial but less than a full biography of Hannah Arendt, the filmmakers pack too many complex relationships and big ideas into 113 minutes with far too little intellectual substance for support.

Gresham Riley

Jul 08, 2013 · Articles · 5 minute read

The ordeal of "Hannah Arendt' (1st review)

Enemy of her people?

For the crime of trying to understand Nazi behavior and raising uncomfortable questions about how to cope with evil, the political theorist Hannah Arendt became a pariah among her fellow Jews.

Dan Rottenberg

Jun 27, 2013 · Articles · 7 minute read

Brad Pitt's apocalypse: "World War Z'

Hands off my zombies, Brad!

The movie version of World War Z glosses over the zombies that made the book interesting and replaces them with derivative action sequences. It was almost painful to watch the bastardization of a genre so near and dear to my heart.

Lance Manion

Jun 25, 2013 · Articles · 4 minute read

Zal Batmanglij's "The East'

Those evil corporations again

Evil corporations get their comeuppance in The East, but Zal Batmanglij's mess of a film is almost a primer in how not to do political paranoia. Next reel, please.

Robert Zaller

Jun 24, 2013 · Articles · 4 minute read

My son as "The Graduate'

Where have you gone, Dustin Hoffman? Or: In my house, it's 1967 all over again

If you think life doesn't imitate art, visit my home, where things have taken a strange turn now that my son Brandon has graduated from high school.

Perry Block

Jun 20, 2013 · Articles · 3 minute read

Noah Baumbach's "Frances Ha'

To be young, rootless and struggling— but oh, the possibilities!

In Noah Baumbach's latest film, 27-year-old Frances is caught somewhere between who she is and whom she wants to be— a world not yet defined and unexpectedly magical.

Maxine Krenzel

Jun 18, 2013 · Articles · 3 minute read