Monthly Archives: October 2013

Ed Lauter was the first character actor I ever interviewed. And he was pretty far into a long and hit-packed career, even then. In the years since that chat, I always smile when I see him on the screen, turning … Continue reading →

No, they weren’t film fans taking all the Michael Bay hate rhetoric on the Internet too literally. The Hong Kong set scuffle that involved Mr. Bay appears to have been some sort of old fashioned shake down. Wait, there’s still … Continue reading →

It’s no secret that actors lie, or at least stretch the truth, to get a role. Even Robert Redford.“He kept talking about his boating experience, admitting it might take a while to get his ‘sea legs’back,” remembers director J.C. Chandor, … Continue reading →

Once one of Hollywood’s Young Turks, an acclaimed screenwriter (“The Gambler,” “Bugsy”) and offbeat director (“Fingers”, “The Pick Up Artist”), James Toback’s most recent success was his quite-revealing documentary-interview with Mike Tyson (“Tyson”). He had this idea to make a … Continue reading →

Stallone was always a better actor than Schwarzenegger. That burning question, for those old enough to have asked it and deluded enough to have never figured it out, is answered once and for all in “Escape Plan,” a vintage prison … Continue reading →

Sophisticated, well-cast and heartfelt, “Grace Unplugged” is further proof that a little Hollywood sheen goes a long way in the faith-based film genre. But in blending the “kid corrupted by the music biz” formula with a story of core values … Continue reading →

“Oh Lord,” the old fisherman’s prayer goes, “Thy sea is so great and my boat is so small.” Anybody who has ever sailed a boat — any boat — over the wine dark sea has that line at the ready … Continue reading →

We expect the lashings, the leg irons, the cruelty and injustice of it all. But what Steve McQueen’s brilliant “12 Years A Slave” does for our understanding of that “peculiar” institution is the utter hopelessness of those enslaved. It lets … Continue reading →

As the world doesn’t seem to have quite made up its mind about Julian Assange, it seems fitting that the new film about him and the rise of Wikileaks has an ambivalence about it as well. “The Fifth Estate” takes … Continue reading →