by Coeli Carr | Nov 27, 2013
In genuine stories of sisterhood, blood or otherwise, men tread lightly until the gals sort things out. That’s the basis of Disney’s 3-D animated movie Frozen, in which older sis Elsa (voiced by Idina Menzel) and younger sibling Anna (voiced by Kristen Bell) must get...
by Coeli Carr | Nov 26, 2013
The opening scene of Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom centers on a young male black child, gleefully racing through field in rural South Africa. No barriers lay in the boy’s path. Fast forward to Johannesburg in 1942 and the movie’s initial image, heralding a boundless...
by Coeli Carr | Nov 22, 2013
The Hunger Games franchise likes to quantify. Twelve subjugated districts of the fractured country called Panem paying obeisance to the Capitol. Seventy-four (and counting) annual fight-to-the-death competitions, each one involving the forced participation, to the...
by Coeli Carr | Nov 20, 2013
The heartfelt story of a mother’s love over a period of decades, Stephen Frears’ Philomena is a haunting riff on the maternal and emotional Lunar archetype. The total Moon-package here is real-life Philomena Lee (Judi Dench) who, as a teen in 1950s’ Northern Ireland,...
by Coeli Carr | Nov 11, 2013
People are quick to spit out old-people adjectives. Stubborn. Demanding. Irrational. In Alexander Payne’s Nebraska, Woody Grant (Bruce Dern) wears those descriptives proudly and even defiantly. His senior traits ignite, generating mayhem among those who love him and...
by Coeli Carr | Nov 7, 2013
Books, storytelling and theft are the perfect Mercurial trifecta that’s the heart of The Book Thief, a movie directed by Brian Percival and based on the global best-selling novel about a little girl growing up in Nazi Germany. Little Liesel (Sophie Nelisse)...