Reviews on ReelTalk Move Reviews

Ugly Sucker - By Donald Levit

F.W. Murnau would enjoy more name recognition had he not died at forty-two on a California road. His first American release, Sunrise, was Cahiers...

Oh Dad, Poor Dad - By Donald Levit

The bad-seed/demon-spawn kid has been a staple of psychological-supernatural horror. Of more recent birth are documentary and fictional accounts of missing children, trafficked from the Third World into sexual or labor slavery or, in the West, imperiled...

Love During Wartime - By Adam Hakari

In a way, movies like Dear John are the most fantastical of screen romances. Only from the highest realms of implausibility could a series of events as dramatically convenient as what unfolds here originate. To be fair, this is the most grounded adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks...

Mad about Alice - By Betty Jo Tucker

Hooray! Tim Burton�s cinematic take on Lewis Carroll�s classic Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass children�s books snapped me out of my 2010 movie doldrums. At about mid-point in the movie, I simply had to whisper to my husband, �This is so good,�...

Insightful and Moving - By Misha Zubarev

Veteran writer Gianni Di Gregorio makes a challenging yet rewarding leap from writer to director in an insightful and moving debut feature entitled Mid-August Lunch (Pranzo di ferragosto). Gianni plays himself here in a semi-fictional setting of a what-if...

Street Kid Working Overtime - By Jeffrey Chen

Chop Shop follows the daily life of a plucky 12-year-old called "Ale" -- short for Alejandro, and played by Alejandro Polanco -- as he scraps his way to a living the only way a street orphan can in the Willets Point area of Queens, New York. When he's not selling questionably-obtained...

The Children's Teeth Are Set on Edge - By Donald Levit

Harlan--In the Shadow of �Jew S�ss� follows in the footsteps of its historian-filmmaker-coproducer Felix Moeller�s mother, Margarethe von Trotta. Her New German Cinema treats of psychology and politics, personal belief vs. community pressure, and cultural history carried...

Fresh Storytelling on Film - By Misha Zubarev

(500) Days of Summer has adapted a trick many modern films take to circumvent the traditional three-act structure since the inception and popularization of Christopher Nolan's Memento. Tom, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, is an office clerk who falls madly in love with his boss' co...

A Multi-Layered Thriller - By Frank Wilkins

With its lingering suspense and contemplative intrigue, The Ghost Writer will undoubtedly find itself frequently mentioned in the same breath as many of Alfred Hitchcock�s greatest films� and rightly so. The �Master of Suspense� possessed a unique way of building suspense slowly...

Insanity Reigns - By Betty Jo Tucker

Should we fear biological weapons more than nuclear ones? Perhaps. But if these two types of weaponry are combined, the impact would be even more horrifying. The Crazies, a remake of an early George Romero flick, follows a courageous sheriff and his wife as they try to...