Fourth Row Center

Director Mark Herman ( Brassed Off, Little Voice ) adapts a moving and tragic novel about two boys separated by race, hatred and superstition during the height of the Third Reich. Having seen this movie it’s no surprise why the reviews are so mixed, and why both positive and negative reviews have been delivered with such conviction. There seems to be little middle ground as to whether or not it is fitting for filmmakers to tell this type of story in the way that it was told, partially set in a concentration camp in Germany during the second World War. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas brings to mind Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful , a concentration camp film that dealt with the tragedy of the Holocaust with hope and at times a comic touch. Both films use similar elements to tell their stories, but Pyjamas takes a heavier hand and Herman never flinches away from the story he is telling, and in the end he delivers a film that is sure to elicit discussion from its viewers. It was only...

The new James Bond movie kicks off with a ferocious car chase wherein Bond struggles to get the upper hand. He leads his pursuers around narrow winding mountain roads and, not surprisingly, experiences a number of close calls. I kept waiting for Bond to engage some Q-section gadgetry on his Alfa Romeo to take out his opponents -- machine guns, oil slicks, and so on. But not this Bond. He has but his raw nerve and wits to get him out of this scrape, and I realized that this is the new Bond. Bond retooled. A tough, layered and resourceful secret agent who doesn't need to rely on techy gadgets to save his skin. And I like it. Quantum of Solace is a new Bond adventure, yes, but ties in heavily with Casino Royale . Quantum builds on the story told in actor Daniel Craig's initial outing as 007, and as such this film does not stand well on its own, which is its weakness. That said, director Marc Forster ( The Kite Runner , Finding Neverland ) delivers everything audiences have com...

My friend Mike summed up one aspect of this film with the comment, “The half of the audience that doesn ’t have kids was watching this movie on a whole different level.” Director Clint Eastwood’s Changeling brings to mind other recent films wherein parents deal with tragic circumstances involving their children: Gone Baby Gone and Eastwood’s Mystic River among them. The emotional core of films like Changeling rely on the audience empathizing with the pain of a parent who loses a child, and Angelina Jolie delivers her best performance in years as a mother whose son is nowhere to be found when she returns from work. Set in Los Angeles during the 1920’s, Changeling is a true story. Eastwood works from a marvelous canvas in this period film. Its rich set and costume design suits the movie’s slow and deliberate pacing, and Eastwood’s minimalist musical score allows the audience to immerse itself not only in this world of 1920’s L.A. but in Jolie’s solid performance as a determined woman...