For his second film of 2018, Jason Reitman follows up the remarkable Tully with a completely different beast. Where the former was a quietly scary, exquisitely wrought depiction of post-partum depression, The Front Runner is a political comedy about a real-life event: Gary Hart’s 1988 presidential campaign, which was ruined by an affair uncovered by […]
Hugh Jackman
Posted inArts + Music
Real heart in Real Steel
Emotions run high in this beautifully rendered sci-fi/sports movie. An ailing grifter, boxer and deadbeat dad, Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) keeps afloat by taking any robot he can scrap together to the ring to knock the block off any other metal head for money. Silly premise aside, this underdog robo-boxing movie shows real heart and […]
Posted inArts + Music
Kitschy Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
In present day Shanghai, Nina (Bingbing Li) visits her comatose laotong (sworn sister) Sophia (Gianna Jun) in hospital. She reads Sophia’s unpublished manuscript, a parallel story of two other laotong, Snow Flower and Lily (Jun and Li) living in 1820s Hunan Province. The elaborate costumes are the most compelling part of the movie, which has […]