The Critical Filmmaker

This French-Canadian film tells the story of an Algerian man who takes over teaching a class of eleven year-old children who are dealing with the suicide of their teacher. Bashir Lazhar is also dealing with his own demons, and in so doing finds a kinship with those students. A heartwarming piece, this Oscar nominated film is a must see.  I highly recommend it.

I wasn't sure whether or not I wanted to see this film.  I had heard some mixed reviews and I had mixed feelings about Seabiscuit.  I didn't want it to be a replay of that film. However, I do like horse racing plots (I'm a huge fan of Dick Francis), and I do remember hearing about the Secretariat as a child.  Also, I was curious as to why Craig Ferguson had a fake horse by that name on his talk show.  So that was enough to take the chance. Overall the film was well done and very engaging.  I found the story to be interesting and it held my interest throughout.  I think as an overall story it flowed much better than Seabiscuit, which seemed to assume that the audience had read the novel or educated themselves enough ahead of time to excuse the lack of exposition at the beginning of that film. John Malkovitch is only marginally better in this than Dangerous Liaisons.  Here he plays a French-Canadian named Lucien Laurin.  His French-Canadian ac...

William H. Macy wrote, produced  and starred in this film which also featured Meg Ryan, Jason Ritter and LL Cool J. It's a comedy about a down-on-his-luck producer who decides he's going to get one of the major studios to agree to film a movie about Benjamin Disraeli, only it has to star the recently-converted-to-Judaism action star played by LL Cool J. Elliot Gould is in this as a rabbi who also serves as technical advisor. There's a lot of jokes about Hollywood, lots of Hebrew spoken by LL Cool J, lots of deal-making scenes that are quite clever (and probably true), and a few really funny moments. It was an amusing film, but for the most part it didn't have the strength for a theatrical release.  I'm not sure if it has been screened anywhere since I saw it a few year ago.

I wanted to like it this film, but in the end I didn't. This was a movie about a couple of con men, this time two brothers. One was the true master of the plan, while the other reluctantly carried it out with him. It starred Adrien Brody, Mark Rufalo and Rachel Weisz. My problem with the film was that the whole thing was a con. There were no moments of revelation - not even at the end - no moment of reality, though they seemed to tease us with it from time to time. Also, my biggest gripe about the movie was the sloppy feel of it. There were at least two situations in the film that were never resolved, and writer/director admitted to us at the screening that he felt he didn't need to resolve it.  He said that the audience could figure it out on their own. I disagreed with him on that.  While I don't mind that concept, not everything can be imagined by the audience. I like films that make you think and leave things to the imagination, but this one felt a bit lazy....

This is an Iranian film. It was an interesting movie exploring the act of forgiveness of convicted murderers in the country's prisons. It's part of the religious law that the family of the victim has the right to accept forgiveness from the killer. By doing so they spare him his life. He still has to pay a fine or sign over property as determined by the victim's family, and he has to serve a jail term. If the family doesn't forgive one member has to administer the execution. This falls under the "eye for an eye" belief. If someone else executes the convict it is considered murder. Anyway, this movie explores this as we follow one man though his stay at a Teheran prison, where he's already been brought up for execution and delayed twice because the victim's family failed to show up. We watch and wait to see if he will be forgiven or not. It's a fictional story based on real events. It's a good film. At bit slow in points, but they worked f...

Mongol is a film about Gengis Kahn from childhood until he started to unify Mongolia. I thought it was a good film along the lines of Hero and House of Flying Daggers, but without the 360 degree camerawork and martial arts. This was more like Braveheart with a lot less fighting scenes, but like Hero in the sense that it had some sweeping landscapes and beautiful imagery. I never learned about Gengis Kahn in school, so I knew very little about him. Apparently, there is no real documented history about him, only stories from people whose lands he captured. The movie paints him in a positive light.

Too short to separate.  I highly recommend The Messenger.  Precious was excellent as well.  See below: Film:  9.99 A bizarre animated film about a bunch of people living in a high-rise apartment complex, each one trying to find meaning in their lives.  One man finds the love of his life and does anything she asks of him, which makes him as happy as she is, no matter how odd the request. There are other stories, but that's one of the more memorable ones.  This film is a puzzlement.  I really wasn't sure what I was supposed to get from it. It features voices from today's top Australian actors including Geoffrey Rush and Anthony LaPaglia. --------------------------------------------------  Film:  The Messenger Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster star as two US soldiers stationed in New Jersey who are assigned to visit relatives and break the news of the death of their loved ones. It was very well done. It shows how these two men cope ...