It sounds like an oxymoron, but this is a modest epic, an intimate character drama that unfolds across decades and continents with top-notch movie stars and top-notch special effects. Benjamin Button is the tale of a man born elderly, who then goes through his life aging in reverse. With a screenplay based mostly on just the central gimmick of F.… read more!

Every once in a while, I'll see a pretty good movie spoiled by one really bad scene. Fight Club is such a movie. Edward Norton stars as an anonymous narrator who hates his job, his life, and the world around him. He is, in particular, profoundly angry and depressed by the rampant consumerism that surrounds him. Then he bumps into… read more!

I've never been a big reader. I can make it through six books per year if I'm diligent. This year, one of the books I read was Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl – because my wife read it and enjoyed it (except for the ending), and then she gave it to me, suggesting that I too would enjoy it (except for… read more!

The days of the cradle-to-grave biopic are mostly behind us, with films about historic figures now choosing to narrow in on key events in their lives in order to reveal their souls. It works well in movies like The Queen and Steve Jobs because we are already so familiar with their subjects. But here we have Mank, about Herman J.… read more!

I admit that I am a sucker for feature films about the very recent past. I thoroughly enjoyed The Queen, Breach, United 93, and to a lesser extent Invictus. Older releases such as The Best Years of Our Lives and All the President's Men retain a relevance even now, when one considers how fresh their subject matter was when they… read more!

Originally I was going to write this review under the assumption that everybody knew the basic details of San Francisco's legendary Zodiac Killer: how many murders he's connected with, how long his killing spree lasted, and whether he was ever identified or caught. But my wife informed me, after we saw Zodiac, that she knew none of this going into… read more!