Stop Loss is a film about the war in Iraq and what it does to the young men who serve. War is hell. So is this film. How it gets the ratings it does is beyond me. IMDB says “Mark Richard estimated that there were no less than 65 drafts of the script.” Sixty five, no less? Fewer might have been bett...

Finally got to see No Country for Old Men over the weekend, and boy was it worth it. I don't know that I can remember a film as full of suspense. I heard an interview with the sound designer, I think it was, who explained how the Coens had insisted on almost no music and how he had assembled the s...

M.A. Peel, over at her blog, has a big deal post explaining to the world the significance of the scene with the horses that ends the first segment, before the flashback, of Michael Clayton. She does a good job of it too. My point is, why was it needed? I mean, who did not realize what was going on...

In the Valley of Elah is a pretty good film, made absolutely mesmerizing by the way Tommy Lee Jones inhabits his role. The lined face, the slight haggardness, the way he keeps his emotions in check: it is his film. The sense we have of not quite knowing who he is, which seems mirrored in the way he...

The Last King of Scotland is a pretty exciting tale to file under “innocents abroad”. What is this hell hole I’ve wandered into, and how do I get out? Except that for the most part, the hell hole is really rather attractive, at least to the hero, who doesn’t start to wonder about getting out until...