Midnight Special Movie Review

The enticement of big studio backing, larger budgets, and wider distribution must be great to successful indie filmmakers. Jeff Nichols had a string of well-received films that did well on the festival circuit and then got a lot more money for his fourth feature, Midnight Special. Unlike what often happens with directors who display talent on the small scale, Nichols didn’t move on to the latest superhero movie or some other blockbuster. Instead he took the money to make his own story and make it without the limitations he surely faced in the past due to budget constraints.

Mud Movie Review

Through its association with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn alone, the Mississippi River evokes something distinctly American, although even Twain was seizing upon the sense of adventure wrought by explorers from Lewis and Clark onward who ventured west in search of the country’s Manifest Destiny. The River is a dividing line between the east with its magnificent cities, institutions of higher learning, tamed land, and civilization, and the new frontier, lawlessness, and new beginnings of the east. More than that, the Mississippi is a mighty river, flowing hard and fast, washing away the junk people don’t want or try to hid, and occasionally carrying people southward, like Huck Finn and Jim, to escape.

Blackthorn Movie Review

If you're in the USA, you've probably not heard of this film yet. It has opened in Spain, where it was produced. According to IMDb, it has recently opened in the States for an Oscar qualifying run.

I love the mythology of the Old West. I love the simplicity of the black hats and white hats shooting it out to establish dominance in a land without the same sense of law and order that existed in the East. It’s a fundamentally American genre albeit one that has been appropriated by other cultures. Australia has its fair share of films that share themes and nearly all Japanese samurai films are variations of westerns.

One of the great myths, at least in Hollywood terms, is Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, already turned into a classic film forty years ago. Now Spanish director Mateo Gil has extended the Butch and Sundance story and made a convincing Western set in the rough and rugged landscape of Bolivia.

The Notebook Movie Review: A Visit to the Past

It’s very rare that I revisit films that I originally found to be decent entertainments but without much reason for repeat viewings. An unusual set of circumstances led to my watching The Notebook again six years after seeing it in the cinema. My wife wanted to see it because some friends had recommended it, their own recollections of the film stirred by the name of our son, Noah. I wouldn’t have watched it except that our DVD player seems to be broken which meant it had to be viewed on my laptop leaving me with little to do but to go back to the book I put down about four months ago.