American History X is an in-depth, often-brutal look at a white supremacist subculture in southern California. Danny Vinyard, a high-school student, is asked to…
Amélie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001)
Having grown up with a cold mother and an emotionally absent father, Amélie, a young Parisian woman with a great capacity for love, has…
Crimes and Misdemeanors (Woody Allen, 1998)
Cliff Stern (Woody Allen) is an idealist filmmaker… until he’s offered a lucrative job shooting a flattering profile of a pompous TV producer (Alan…
Mr. Holland’s Opus (Stephen Herek, 1995)
Mr. Holland’s Opus has much to tell us, but in its rush to do so it sets up shop awkwardly: Roadweary musician Glen Holland…
Their Blood Cries Out (Paul Marshall, 1997)
Mary, a young Egyptian girl, displays her fragile wrist. It is encircled by a bracelet of scarred flesh. Her disfigurement bears mute witness to…
Signs (M. Night Shyamalan, 2002)
There is plenty about Signs we’d love to mention in this review, but won’t because that would ruin it if you haven’t seen it…
King Kong (Peter Jackson, 2005)
Aboard the S.S. Venture, a young sailor looks up from his reading and asks the first mate, “It isn't an adventure story, is it,…
Silversun Pickups, Carnavas (2007)
Looking for what is the latest band on the radar of CMJ and Billboard’s Alternative charts I came across the Silversun Pickups. After catching…
Magnolia (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1999)
One day, several lives, a lot of pain, and one thing connecting them all. Are they connected by their misery, by chance, by blood,…
Bernstein, The Chichester Psalms (1965)
In 1965, Chichester Cathedral, with her sister cathedral in Salisbury, commissioned American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein to compose a setting from the book…