East of Eden: Escaping Reality

Photo: Warner John Steinbeck considered the novel "East of Eden" his magnum opus, a sprawling saga set in Salinas Valley, a California community where he was born. Starting at the…

Rebel Without a Cause: Forever Young

James Dean. Photo: Warner Every time I watch this movie it's impossible not to think about the heartbreaking tragedies that ended the lives of its three young stars. This was…

Fruitvale Station: End of a Year and a Life

Michael B. Jordan and Ariana Neal. Photo: The Weinstein Company Fruitvale Station has become this year's Beasts of the Southern Wild. Much like that film, it came out of the…

Tokyo Story: In the Autumn Years

Setsuko Hara and Chishu Ryu. Photo: Shochiku When I saw Michael Haneke's Amour earlier this year I felt a sudden urge to pay a couple of older relatives a visit.…

The Evening Star 

In 1988, Aurora Greenway (Shirley MacLaine) has a strained relationship with her grandchildren and eventually agrees to see a therapist (Bill Paxton). The sequel to Terms of Endearment (1983) desperately…

Apollo 13: Lost Moon, Saved Lives

Bill Paxton, Kevin Bacon and Tom Hanks. Photo: Universal When producer Brian Grazer and director Ron Howard decided to turn the story about the ill-fated 1972 Apollo 13 mission into…

Dallas: Soap Opera Royalty

Steve Kanaly, Patrick Duffy, Victoria Principal, Jim Davis, Barbara Bel Geddes, Larry Hagman, Charlene Tilton and Linda Gray. Photo: CBS When we think about 1980s television, the supersoaps tend to…

Dogtooth: The Ultimate Brainwash

Photo: Feelgood Entertainment In January 2011, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou announced to his cabinet that Dogtooth had just been nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, going on…

Driving Miss Daisy: The Burden of an Oscar

Morgan Freeman and Jessica Tandy. Photo: Warner When people list the movies they feel did not deserve to win a Best Picture Oscar, this one often comes up. I agree.…

Beasts of the Southern Wild

A huge storm is headed straight toward a Louisiana bayou community… and a five-year-old and her sick dad (Quvenzhané Wallis, Dwight Henry). Director Benh Zeitlin's first feature film became a…