My Opinion: 6.6 || It’s short but dense with revealing perspectives about politics, children, and middle-class China. There’s no mistaking the relevance of watching third graders in a non-democratic country try to make sense… Continue reading
My Opinion: 6.8 || Weighty subject matter presented with directness and limited theatricality. The story’s major developments are easy to anticipate, but it’s an engaging film, with strong sense of place and rich detail.… Continue reading
My Opinion: 7.1 || A clockwork thriller that delivers a beautifully filmed heist sequence and great cat-and-mouse tension. The characters are standard hardboiled types, and some elements of the plot don’t hold up under… Continue reading
My Opinion: 5.6 || A comedy of switched identities that never quite works despite having all the right elements. The storyline is cleverly set up, but the comic acting is often weak, and much… Continue reading
My Opinion: 6.5 || A light, pleasantly cheeky romantic comedy. It’s erratic and lumpy in places, but that’s a welcome contrast to the synthetized rom-com pablum that so often gets served today. It helps… Continue reading
My Opinion: 6.2 || A tidy noirish thriller with interesting characters and a few superior moments. The ending is bizarrely abrupt, as if the real ending got lost and something had to be thrown… Continue reading
My Opinion: 9.2 || Impressive on every level — a great film.
My Opinion: 2.9 || There are movies I’ve disliked more. I just can’t remember what they are.
My Opinion: 8.3 || Harrowing, unique, and deeply insightful. Gets into the marrow of a political and military conflict like no other film I’ve seen. Gripping documentary-style realism and admirable evenhanded in depicting both… Continue reading
MY OPINION: 6.1 || A story of resistance to institutionalized cruelty that’s engaging but also very familiar. We’ve seen this storyline before, from Cool Hand Luke to Papillon to every film that’s ever been… Continue reading
I'm an author and consultant in Portland, Oregon. My novel 'Beheld' will be published this June.
