March 9, 2018

Holden On

Beyond the charmed life and college-bound façade is a darkness and a crippling anguish that lies within Holden. Eventually, Holden’s demons overwhelm him and he takes his own life at the age of 19, sending shockwaves throughout the community and those who knew Holden Layfield. One of these people was Tamlin Hall.
December 16, 2017

Lady Bird

Movies don’t necessarily have to be big-budget extravaganzas in order to transport an audience to a different time and place. Sometimes, all it takes is a good story, good acting, well-written dialogue and universal themes to engage our imaginations. Greta Gerwig’s “Lady Bird” is an excellent example of the kind of small, simple movie that draws the viewer in on the strength of its story and the attention to its craft.
September 13, 2017

Valley of Shadows

While there is stuff to admire in Valley of Shadows, this Norwegian import really wasn’t my cup of tea. This is one of those movies that is long on atmosphere, but short on action or dialogue. A very European movie in style and nature, Valley of Shadows will only appeal to filmgoers who are into minimalist exercises in style.
October 21, 2016

American Pastoral

An “A” for effort for Ewan McGregor in his directorial debut. Boasting an impressive cast including McGregor, Jennifer Connelly, Dakota Fanning, David Straithairn and Peter Riegert, American Pastoral wants to be a heartbreaking story of a family torn apart by the social and political upheaval of the ‘60s. After a strong start, however, the film settles into clichéd melodrama that grows sillier the longer it goes on.
April 30, 2016

King Cobra

A movie as salacious and lurid as the story it’s telling, “King Cobra” has its flaws, but is generally an effective, lean, and very mean piece of “ripped-from-the-headlines” cinema. Boasting a cast including James Franco, Molly Ringwald, Alicia Silverstone, Keegan Allen, a hasn’t-been-this-good-in-years Christian Slater, and former teenybopper Garrett Clayton, ejecting himself from tweendom straight into the tighty-whities of grown-up films, “King Cobra” offers a stylish though straightforward, yet not uncompelling, dramatization of this tawdry tale of murder and sex.
April 11, 2016

Marjoe

It might be tempting to call Marjoe Gortner a con man. He was a noted evangelist in the days before Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, “saving” people in exchange for them forking over money to his ministry, money that sometimes people couldn’t really afford to give. He moved from town to town like a one-man travelling sideshow, preaching the gospel of Jesus to those willing and needing to believe it. He was a consummate showman. The interesting thing is, even he would agree with that.