The Judge Movie Review

The Judge, directed by David Dobkin from a screenplay by Nick Schenk and Bill Dubuque, is a perfect example of soft, flat, non-challenging, placating material that is made to appeal to a demographic of people who watch movie as a means of sedation. Because it stars two very fine actors in Robert Duvall and Robert Downey, Jr., and because it’s a courtroom drama, it is easily digestible to the broadest possible audience.

25 Years Ago This Month: April 1986

It turns out April 1986 was a rather uneventful month at the cinema in the United States. The two biggest box office money earners were basically flops. First was Ridley Scott's Legend starring a pre-Top Gun Tom Cruise.

The second was the low-budget creature feature Critters starring Dee Wallace and a teenage Scott Grimes.




If we ignore a forgotten film from 1974 and a nearly forgotten horror flick called The Hand, Oliver Stone's first important directorial feature was released this month. Salvador stars James Woods as a journalist who travels to El Salvador to document the 1980 civil war and becomes entangled with both the guerrillas and the right-wing military.

Country Strong Movie Review: Country Strong, Movie Weak

There is simply so much wrong with Shana Feste’s Country Strong, it’s really hard to know where to begin. It wants so hard to be the next Tender Mercies but completely lacks the story, the heart, the writing, the directing, the central lead performance and the earned trust of the audience. This is a movie that has absolutely no shame about exploiting the character of a child with cancer to stage one last moment of hope and reconciliation between the protagonist and her husband. It is the mark of a weak director who needs to rely on such easy bait to win audience sympathy. I wonder if Feste has any experience whatsoever with even witnessing, let alone being intimate with, alcoholism. I ask myself because here is a screenplay that doesn’t seem to have a clue about addiction and the ways it insidiously manifests itself and slowly tears apart everyone around the afflicted person.

Gwyneth Paltrow plays country music star Kelly Canter. When we meet her she’s in a rehab clinic getting very friendly with an up-and-coming country music songwriter named Beau Hutton (Garrett Hedlund). When her husband and manager James (Tim McGraw) shows up to collect her (early) from rehab, she says that Beau is her sponsor. James doesn’t hesitate to distrust Beau, and with good reason, because it turns out she’s been having an affair with him.