I saw Lee Hirsch’s documentary Bully (previously called The Bully Project) at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival, before the sound mix was officially finished; shortly after it was purchased by the Weinstein Company. There may have been a few changes made before its release last Friday so I am writing, as it were, from memory. Bully couldn’t have been timelier. In the thirteen years since Columbine, America has seen an alarming uptick in suicides

The Hunger Games will sap up comparisons to science fiction. That’s what happens with stories about futuristic dystopias and freaky hovercraft. The better comparison is to Roman or Biblical epics of the fifties. Its story, of the youth of twelve outlying provinces exploited for the bloodsport of a wealthy and perverse capital, is reminiscent of Ben Hur. It even has a grand chariot parade, with crowds adoring Katniss Everdeen, a coal-haired

Claudio, Orlando and Leonardo Villas Boas are spirited young brothers in search of a path in life in 1943, during a period of historic industrial and agricultural growth in newly-democratic Brazil. They sign up as to travel to the Xingu region of the Amazon to help build a landing strip near indigenous tribes. But in order to do this, they must gain the natives' trust. Xingu, based on true events, is directed by Brazil's Cao Hamburger. His previous

Homer’s memorized recitals of the stories of the heroes and gods certainly required a attention span. The Wrath of The Titans certainly does not. It demands only the attention typically demanded by modern Hollywood blockbuster screenwriting. But would Homer, in all his “As I lay dying, the woman with the dog face wouldn’t close my eyes as I descended into Hades”-ness, been better served by less longwindedness and more

The French title of the movie Délicatesse by the Foenkinos brothers has been translated by Delicacy, in the process losing its je-ne-sais-quoi. Delicacy brings food to mind rather than the subtle concept of thoughtfulness. Yet délicatesse is what makes classy, sophisticated and altogether charming executive Nathalie (played by Audrey Tautou, no less) sit up and notice a humble co-worker, Markus (François Damiens). Damiens is a schlub

If Hollywood summer blockbusters leave you dissatisfied because of their unreal veneer of CGI effects, or if PG-13 ratings turn your stomach because you yearn for a hard R action flick, then you must watch The Raid: Redemption, an Indonesian action dynamo that raises the bar for raw kinetic energy per-screen-minute. Set in the drably-lit slums of Jakarta, Raid tells the story of Rama, a SWAT officer who along with his team assaults an apartment

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