Movies

Real drama is always more interesting to me than scripted drama, and documentaries are the most likely to blow my mind in a movie theater.  When I stepped into The Anjelika to see National Geographic's The Last Lions, I experienced some of the most intense fear, relief, heartache and joy I have ever felt in a dark box with flashing lights. This drama unfolds in Botswana and follows a tiger family going through a period of extreme trauma and the stark choices they must make for survival. There is a script to this movie as well, narrated by Jeremy Irons,…

I watched a great documentary called "Beautiful Losers" about a group of artists who redefined popular art in the 1990s, including Mike Mills, Shepard Fairey, Harmony Korine, Ed Templeton and Margaret Kilgallen. Their work came out of graffiti and skateboard culture and brought art to the masses in a Do-It-Yourself and independent style as the visual equivalent to the indie scene in music and movies that burgeoned in that period. The interviews with the artists are fascinating, allowing a glimpse into the minds of these incredibly creative people; they discuss their process and evolution of the art world, from being…

Psychologically thrilling, Black Swan pulls you through its goosebump gauntlet, slowly at first, then accelerating at mad speed to the final scene and its climatic snap! The tale of a young ballerina at Lincoln Center chosen to portray the mentally and physically challenging role of Swan Queen in Stravinsky's Swan Lake, it is told through beautiful dancing and tricks of the mind and camera. Darren Aronofsky (whom I recently met playing a kid's birthday party) is a master web spinner and this one may be his best yet while Natalie Portman is unbelievably compelling with her desperately compulsive and complex…

Our Lifetime Movie is complete! Our amazingly talented group of friends, led by director and editor Michael Civins, wrote and starred in our very own Lifetime-channel inspired movie. It is the story of Rebecca, a girl in an abusive relationship, finding her voice as a stand-up comedian. I play Charles, the wheelchair-bound "sit-down" comedian who spreads the wings of Rebecca's dreams... Love Is No Laughing Matter

Two great movies on war in the past 24 hours. First a My Lai documentary on PBS, which was one of the heaviest pieces I've ever seen, bringing us through the events leading up to the worst civilian massacre of the Vietnam war and though its execution. Men who were there and involved with mass slaughter of 500 unarmed villagers explained, almost rationally, why they committed this atrocity, and a photographer presents his magnum opus of War's Worst. In the heat of battle and under constant fire from invisible enemies, it is reasonable to expect men to lose their heads,…

The End of The Year is always packed with film for me. Free time and good films go so well together. In the past few days I have seen Sherlock Holmes and Invictus, which I thought were both excellent Hollywood efforts. I particularly enjoyed the story of Nelson Mandela and the South African Rugby Team's triumph in the 1995 World Cup. I love a good sports story and this one occurred at a very important time in the struggle for equality, just after the fall of Apartheid. Sports can be a powerful bond and they create community, providing a single…

IMAX 3D is a pretty amazing experience. I used to go to The Omnimax at The Museum of Science in Boston, which was always exciting, but the movie fare was limited to one hour documentaries. Although the screen does not actually wrap around the audience as in Omnimax, the glasses and 3D effects of Avatar make it seem so; it is a truly unique viewing experience. A virtual reality movie about virtual reality, the story revolves around a soldier remotely operating an alien replicant on a distant moon in the distant future. Said moon contains vast deposits of a rock…