Category: 2014
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Reel 88: Backstage Drama II
Where have we been? Fair question. Not to get into too many details, but we decided to take a short break and then we each had our own little medical misadventures. Nevertheless, we’re back on our respective feet and ready to go! In another day or two we’ll be providing you with our tribute to…
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A Most Wanted Man (2014) – Review
Though I obviously have no problem ranking my favorite films (even though I sometimes struggle with the order, as well as whether I can limit it to 10 favorites per year), and I also don’t have an issue with ranking individual performances, I’m not really good at ranking individual actors in their overall careers. Nevertheless,…
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Reel 73: More John LeCarré
With this episode we conclude our mini-series on spy films, with a second set of films based on the novels of John LeCarré. We start with Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, a 2011 film directed by Tomas Alfredson and starring more high-power talent than you can shake a stick at. They spent so much money on…
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Reel 42: Off-Beat Musical Biopics
Biographical films are always tricky to navigate, largely because they need to choose a point of view to work from. For instance, when talking with other people about the recent biopic Elvis, some viewers were disappointed that we didn’t get to see Elvis Presley eating one of his weird sandwiches, or that we didn’t get…
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Reel 2: Malcolm X, Selma
In today’s episode, Sean and Claude take a look at two films about civil rights leaders of the 1960s: Malcolm X (1992), directed by Spike Lee, and Selma (2014), directed by Ava DuVernay. In general, people have very different images of these two icons in their heads: Martin Luther King as the nonviolent, peaceful “passive…