Showing Tag: " political" (Show all posts)

REVIEW: To Purge & Purify in This Election Year, The New Founding Fathers Target Presidential Contender Senator Charlene Roan

Posted by James Brown on Saturday, July 2, 2016, In : 0.06% Beer or Wine 
The Purge: Election Year





Directed By: James DeMonaco

Starring: Frank Grillo, Elizabeth Mitchell, and Mykelti Williamson

The political conventions are coming this month, and there's a lot that could potentially happen over the next several weeks.  With donors backing out left and right, the Republican convention is seemingly in turmoil.  It's also not clear who is willing to hold their nose and risk political suicide as Trump's vice presidential pick.  On the other side of the aisle, we have a de...

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REVIEW: With Deeds Not Words, Foot Soldier & Suffragette Maud Watts Never Surrenders & Never Gives Up the Fight for the Vote for Women

Posted by James Brown on Monday, November 2, 2015, In : 0.03% Wine Coolers 
Suffragette





Directed By: Sarah Gavron

Starring: Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter, Brendan Gleeson, Anne-Marie Duff, Ben Whishaw, and Meryl Streep

The best cinematic experiences are often the ones from which moviegoers take away something, the ones from which they learn something.  Entertainment and education aren't mutually exclusive objectives in filmmaking.  With all the adaptations we're seeing during this particular awards season, it's safe to say that we as a movie-going public ought to...

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REVIEW: Truth Finds the Courage to Say FEA to Its Abusive Dad America

Posted by James Brown on Sunday, November 1, 2015, In : 0.06% Beer or Wine 
Truth





Directed By: James Vanderbilt

Starring: Robert Redford, Cate Blanchett, Topher Grace, Dennis Quaid, and Elisabeth Moss

As much as the right wing tries to put every single one of our nation's woes on President Obama (and his liberal media), everyone has to admit that his direct predecessor George W. Bush left the United States FUBAR.  The Iraq War.  Hurricane Katrina.  Scooter Libby.  The Great Recession.  The list goes on and on. Yes, Bush 43 has plenty of failures.  Even Republican presid...

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REVIEW: With Lord of The Rings, Katy Perry, & Honeypotting All Over Skylark Tonight, North Korean-Themed The Interview Pees & Poos on Itself

Posted by James Brown on Thursday, December 25, 2014, In : 0.09% Cocktails 
The Interview





Directed By: Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg

Starring: Seth Rogen, James Franco, Lizzy Caplan, and Randall Park

I'm sure there are some patriots out there celebrating our recent victory over terrorists trying to keep us from watching The Interview.  Well, I'm not one of them.  Though I appreciate their sentiments, I'm of a different mindset.  Simply put, Sony fucked up.  First of all, the company opted to distribute a film that casually jokes about killing an actual head of state.  Th...
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REVIEW: Watching the Media Kill the Messenger Gary Webb Over the CIA's Dark Alliance With Nicaraguan Druglords Is One Good History Lesson

Posted by James Brown on Sunday, October 12, 2014, In : 0.03% Wine Coolers 
Kill the Messenger





Directed By: Michael Cuesta

Starring: Jeremy Renner, Ray Liotta, Barry Pepper, Michael Sheen, Andy Garcia, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Rosemarie DeWitt, Paz Vega, Oliver Platt, Richard Schiff, Robert Patrick, and Michael K. Williams

History is often the best way to validate an opinion.  We could all debate our friends and loved ones in perpetuity based on opinions alone, but facts are facts.  Regardless of who’s writing history, there are always certain irrefutable facts.  When...
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REVIEW: From Prisoner to President, Mandela Wears Some Long Trousers on His Long Walk to Freedom

Posted by James Brown on Thursday, December 26, 2013, In : 0.03% Wine Coolers 
Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom





Directed By: Justin Chadwick

Starring: Idris Elba and Naomie Harris

We lost a global icon this year.  With the passing of Nelson Mandela several weeks ago, we should celebrate this legendary leader's accomplishments and honor his legacy.  As it turns out, Hollywood is doing just that in their own way this awards season.  Though not the means to combat poverty or eradicate social injustice, the biopic Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom is the means by which another genera...
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REVIEW: Julian Assange May Have Hundreds of Volunteers in The Fifth Estate, But They Don't Get the Information Revolution Started Right

Posted by James Brown on Saturday, October 19, 2013, In : 0.09% Cocktails 
The Fifth Estate





Directed By: Bill Condon

Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Daniel Brühl, Anthony Mackie, David Thewlis, Alicia Vikander, Stanley Tucci, and Laura Linney

As the media unanimously covered the GOP's shutdown of the federal government and their manufactured debt ceiling crisis, some news fell through the cracks this week.  Recently, a judge in New York approved the NSA's continued bulk collection of Americans' call logs, something to which I would imagine most Americans are vehementl...
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REVIEW: After the Bombing of Borough Market in London-Based Thriller Closed Circuit, MI5's Powers are at Play But Beyond John Crowley's Control

Posted by James Brown on Thursday, August 29, 2013, In : 0.09% Cocktails 
Closed Circuit





Directed By: John Crowley

Starring: Eric Bana, Rebecca Hall, Ciarán Hinds, Jim Broadbent, Riz Ahmed, and Julia Stiles

The all-encompassing reach of covert government organizations has been a hot topic for discussion this year.  That's largely thanks to whistleblower Edward Snowden and his disclosures about the NSA several months ago.  The American government is getting all the data in the world on us, and I use the term "us" fairly loosely.  If you use the Internet, you're one of...
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REVIEW: If You're a Member of the Weather Underground Organization Like Nick Sloan, Secrets are the Only Company You Keep

Posted by James Brown on Sunday, April 14, 2013, In : 0.06% Beer or Wine 
The Company You Keep





Directed By: Robert Redford

Starring: Robert Redford, Shia LaBeouf, Julie Christie, Susan Sarandon, Jackie Evancho, Brendan Gleeson, Brit Marling, Anna Kendrick, Terrence Howard, Richard Jenkins, Nick Nolte, Sam Elliott, Stephen Root, Keegan Connor Tracy, Stanley Tucci, and Chris Cooper

Robert Redford has been a busy man as of late.  He's joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Nick Fury's boss in Captain America: Winter Soldier.  He'll be appearing in survival thriller All...
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REVIEW: Voting NO Against Pinochet Means Happiness is Coming for Our Comrades in Chile; YES Means a Better Sex Life With the Same Old Dictator

Posted by James Brown on Sunday, March 3, 2013, In : 0.03% Wine Coolers 
NO





Directed By: Pablo Larrain

Starring: Gael García Bernal, Néstor Cantillana, Amparo Noguera, Antonia Zegers, Marcial Tagle, and Luis Gnecco

"No me gusta, no.  No lo quiero, no... (I don't like him, no.  I don't want him, no...)"
-Chilean Singers

The Academy Awards have come and gone.  That means that the awards season is finally done.  The golden statuettes handed out this year are now collecting dust on the trophy-laden shelves of the winners.  Slowly but surely, films like Amour, Beasts of t...
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REVIEW: Knife Fight – The Master Of Disaster Shows The End Justifies The Means In This Political Drama

Posted by SoberFilmChick on Sunday, February 10, 2013, In : 0.09% Cocktails 

Knife Fight
SoberFilmChick




Directed by: Bill Guttentag

Starring:  Rob Lowe, Jamie Chung, Carrie-Anne Moss, Julie Bowen, and Eric McCormack

“To win in politics, you have got to be the person who is willing to bring a gun to a knife fight.” – Paul Turner (Rob Lowe)

My early year movie slump continues.  I have yet to see a stellar film this year and I was hoping against hope that the Rob Lowe driven political indie Knife Fight would jump start 2013 for me.  Unfortunately, it did not.

Pau...


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REVIEW: With Steven Spielberg's Compass, Lincoln Finds Its True North

Posted by James Brown on Saturday, November 10, 2012, In : 0.03% Wine Coolers 

Lincoln





Directed By: Steven Spielberg

Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, James Spader, Hal Holbrook, Tommy Lee Jones, Jackie Earle Haley, Jared Harris, John Hawkes, and David Oyelowo

"We must cure ourselves of slavery. This amendment is that cure. We’re stepped out upon the world stage now with the fate of human dignity in our hands. Blood's been spilled to afford us this moment.  Now!  Now!  Now!"
-President Abraham Lincoln (Daniel Day-Lewis)

...
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REVIEW: Argo is No Longer a Fake Movie or a Fake Hit

Posted by James Brown on Saturday, October 13, 2012, In : 0.03% Wine Coolers 

Argo





Directed By: Ben Affleck

Starring: Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin, and John Goodman

Argo couldn't have come to theaters in a more timely fashion.  Just several weeks after the attack in Benghazi that left the US ambassador J. Christopher Stevens to Libya and three other Americans dead, we revisit a similar situation, the Iran Hostage Crisis during which the lives of 52 embassy employees were put in grave danger for a total of 444 days.  While the film was put into production lo...


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REVIEW: The Campaign is Taking Care of Business

Posted by James Brown on Friday, August 10, 2012, In : 0.06% Beer or Wine 
The Campaign





Directed By: Jay Roach

Starring: Will Ferrell, Zach Galifianakis, Jason Sudeikis, Katherine LaNasa, Dylan McDermott, John Lithgow, Dan Aykroyd, and Brian Cox

I am sick and tired of hearing about Mitt Romney and Barack Obama this year.  I'm sick of the constant barrage of ads.  I'm sick of the incessant media coverage.  I'm sick of obvious half-truths.  I'm sure the election season has gotten on your nerves as well.  With this in mind, Jay Roach's The Campaign could not have had bett...
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REVIEW: As Margaret Thatcher, Meryl Streep Gives Us the Rusty Old Iron Lady

Posted by James Brown on Saturday, January 14, 2012, In : 0.06% Beer or Wine 
The Iron Lady





Directed By: Phyllida Lloyd

Starring: Meryl Streep, Jim Broadbent, Anthony Head, and Richard E. Grant

Does great acting make a film great?  This awards season has answered this very important question.  Though it was never posed, it is worthwhile.  Well, the answer has consistently been an adamant "no".  Just look at Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar.  On paper, the film was destined for the Oscars.  What we got however was a subpar historical drama on one of America's most controversial m...
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REVIEW: In The Ides of March, Clooney Shows How Politics Kills Souls

Posted by James Brown on Sunday, October 9, 2011, In : 0.03% Wine Coolers 
The Ides of March





Directed By: George Clooney

Starring: Ryan Gosling, George Clooney, Paul Giamatti, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood, and Philip Seymour Hoffman

The Ides of March may have some really bad timing for its release.  At a time when citizens are fed up with every aspect of the political system in America, the last thing we probably want to see is another thriller about political corruption.  At the same time, one could argue that George Clooney's The Ides of March has some great timing...
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