“Kramer vs. Kramer” wouldn’t be half as good as it is — half as intriguing and absorbing — if the movie had taken sides. The movie’s about a situation rich in opportunities for choosing up sides: a divorce and a fight for the custody of a child. But what matters in a story like this…

Two of the names mentioned most often in Howard Hawks’ “The Big Sleep” (1946) are Owen Taylor and Sean Regan. One is the chauffeur for the wealthy Sternwood family. The other is an Irishman hired by old Gen. Sternwood “to do his drinking for him.” Neither is ever seen alive; Regan has disappeared mysteriously before the…

With every story, it is vital that one understand the purpose behind what is being said. The critical first step to getting our stories right is ensuring that the story we are telling at the moment is aligned with our ultimate mission in life, a phrase I use largely interchangeable with ‘quest’ – as in…

  The Son is structured as two parallel narratives. In 1849, nebulously teenaged Eli McCullough watches Comanches kill his family in front of him and finds himself a slave to Toshaway, a warrior with some authority in the band. Initially horrified by their savage ways, Eli finds himself becoming more at home with his captors, including…

In the right hands, the day-to-day operations of running a bar can be sturdy building blocks for absorbing television.  In the Tanya Saracho’s Latinx Starz comedy Vida commit the sisters Lyn and Emma to rebuilding the bar inherited from their mother. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmANN8aoTtE What makes “Vida” come together so smoothly is Saracho’s understanding of what a bar represents…

If you’re trying to find a way to tell the estranged daughter who is still furious because you left her mother for a young airhead that said airhead is pregnant with your estranged daughter’s soon-to-be half sibling, it probably will not help to have sex with her fiancée. And yet, we have “Funny Story,” where Walter Campbell is…

What is intriguing about Justin Kelly’s “J.T. LeRoy,” from the outset, is the fact that its story is told from the perspective of its non-binary protagonist, Savannah Knoop. Which details the six-year-long scheme hatched by author Laura Albert to convince the world that her sister-in-law, Knoop, was the teenage boy secretly serving as her own literary persona. The picture…

For once, London’s Sunday Times war correspondent Marie Colvin (Rosamund Pike) is answering questions, not asking them. In the interview that brackets “A Private War,” the journalist who interviewed rebel leaders and despotic rulers is asked what she would want some future journalist to know about her and her work. She answers, “I cared enough to go…

Set during a dinner among friends that gradually gets out of hand when they decide to make their private communications dangerously public, the tightly wound script — adapted from the original Italian version, which was directed by Paolo Genovese — is backed by Cavaye’s keen sense of staging and a solid cast that includes Berenice…

“What Men Want” is a gender-swapped remake of “What Women Want,” the 2000 Nancy Meyers film starring Mel Gibson as an arrogant ad exec who learns some important lessons about empathy and humility—and parenting—when given the ability to hear women’s thoughts. This version, starring Taraji P. Henson, who also executive-produced, reflects her previous “Think Like a Man” films as well. The smartest…

A depressed man joins a synchronized swimming team made up of middle aged men. It is in the corridors of their municipal swimming pool that Bertrand, Marcus, Simon, Laurent, Thierry and the others train under the relative authority of Delphine, former glory of the basins. Together, they feel free and helpful. They will put all…

Actor-director Daniel Auteuil (‘Cache’) brings Florian Zeller’s play to the screen in a comedy that co-stars Gerard Depardieu, Sandrine Kiberlain and Adriana Ugarte. The actor, who plays the lead alongside Sandrine Kiberlain, Adriana Ugarte and, of course, Gerard Depardieu, has a hard time wringing a single laugh from this story of a married man lusting…

Clint Eastwood’s “The Mule,” which he directed and stars in, is based on the incredible true story of an octogenarian who became an unlikely drug mule, transporting staggering amounts of cocaine for a major Mexican drug cartel. It features an esteemed cast including Bradley Cooper, Laurence Fishburne, Dianne Wiest and Andy Garcia. And it grapples with several of Eastwood’s preferred…

The moment is unnerving: 15-year-old Celeste (Raffey Cassidy) lies in bed with a man she just met, a man much older than she is who is drifting in and out of pill-induced unconsciousness. A piece of silver fabric is wrapped around her throat, and her eyes are smudged with mascara. She looks very young and…

When he lectured on literature at Cornell University, Vladimir Nabokov referred to Jane Austen’s 1814 novel “Mansfield Park” as a “fairy tale,” a term he did not use disparagingly. He also obliquely noted that none of its fairy-tale romantic doings would have been possible were its characters not somewhat affluent, and that the source of the money that…

Director Barry Jenkins summons James Baldwin’s spirit in his adaptation of the author’s 1974 book, “If Beale Street Could Talk” by immediately quoting him onscreen: “Every black person born in America was born on Beale Street, whether in Jackson, Mississippi, or in Harlem, New York. Beale Street is our legacy.” For Baldwin, Beale Street doesn’t just run through Memphis, Tennessee; it runs through the DNA of African-Americans, a…

It’s a hero’s journey, of course. Two men—one white, one black—from polar opposite backgrounds with wildly contrasting personalities get thrown together under unusual circumstances. They learn from each other, change each other for the better and discover that—guess what?—they’re not so different after all. “Green Book” is all that and more: It also takes place…

Searching for a quest,  he found the language The madman is William Chester Minor, an American doctor who served in the Civil War, then went to London in 1871 and, out of what we might now call a psychotic fantasy of persecution, killed a man he had never met. The professor is James Murray, the…

Opening and closing with Queen’s triumphant performance at Live Aid in 1985, the film shows (sort of) the transformation of shy buck-toothed Farrokh Bulsara, the closeted son of Parsis parents, into the strutting swaggering Freddie Mercury. Freddie is shown approaching a band he likes backstage at a club in London. They just lost their lead…

  It is a strange comment to make about a film set inside a prison, but “The Shawshank Redemption” creates a warm hold on our feelings because it makes us a member of a family. Many movies offer us vicarious experiences and quick, superficial emotions. “Shawshank” slows down and looks. It uses the narrator’s calm,…

In 1885, Oscar Wilde wrote in a letter to his friend James Whistler, “Be warned in time, James; and remain, as I do, incomprehensible: to be great is to be misunderstood.” Wilde could not have known how tragically true those words would be a mere decade later. After his highly publicized trial in 1895, Wilde was convicted…

A film about complex humans at life-defining crossroads, forced to make choices that directly clash with the set of stories they had thus far lived by. Sophisticated and challenging, “The Children Act” continues this trend for filmgoers who would like to flex their intellectual muscles and engage with serious themes that don’t revolve around crudeness…

Mr Mercedes is based on the Stephen King book of the same name, the first in his hard-boiled crime thriller trilogy starring the recurring character of retired detective Bill Hodges.  Like most King stories, it has a humdinger of an opening act. It’s 3am and freezing cold as hundreds of optimistic unemployed people queue for a…

Great action movies develop a rhythm like no other genre. Think of the way the stunts in “Mad Max: Fury Road” become a part of the storytelling. Think of how “Die Hard” flows so smoothly from scene to scene, making us feel like we’re right there with John McClane. Think of the dazzling editing of…

  Each character in this movie represents a distinctive romantic stage of older womanhood. Fonda’s Vivian is a never-wed, fabulously successful luxury hotel owner who has a huge appetite for sex but steadfastly shuns commitment. Keaton’s Diane (yes, they wrote the part for her) is a recent widow after 40 years of marriage. Her two…

In “Colette,” based on the life of the foremost female French novelist, Giles Nuttgens’ gorgeous cinematography invites us into the lush, candle-lit world of late 19th century France, contrasting the thick greenery outdoors of the countryside with the highly decorated interiors of Paris. Both locations are seductively lavish, not in terms of the money spent by the…

“Promise me you’re not here to sow discord in the fields of my peace.” That’s the first line of dialogue spoken by Lady Mae Greenleaf (a chilling Lynn Whitfield) in OWN’s faith-based drama Greenleaf, and it sets the tone for a series that serves its dynastic melodrama with a liberal sprinkling of regal diva camp. The…

  Who would have thought that Jacques Audiard, the French director of slow-burn, humanistic character studies would one day take on one of the most characteristically American of genres, the Western, with his English-language debut? While worlds apart from his socially realist “Dheepan” and “Rust and Bone,” Audiard’s “The Sisters Brothers” sports a similarly closely watched,…

Despite working in feature films for nearly 40 years, Denzel Washington has never until now appeared in a sequel to one of his films. Oh sure, he has done a number of films where one suspects that future installments might have been contemplated at some point but none have ever come to fruition. Now he has finally…

“The Help” is a film about a quest. Presenting itself as the story of how African-American maids in the South viewed their employers during Jim Crow days, it is equally the story of how they empowered three women to transform their lives. All three women rewrite in the course of their course to write a…

Lisa Spinelli, the 40-something educator at the center of Sara Colangelo’s reflective character study “The Kindergarten Teacher,” is bored out of her mind. Not only bored, but also frustrated for having a great deal to express, yet being cursed with inadequate (or moderate-at-best) creative skills to convey her novel musings through art. She navigates her way…

The Lover archetype governs all sorts of human love, from parental love, to friendship, to spiritual love, but it is most important to romantic love. You might think of the Roman love god and goddess – Cupid and Venus – and of classic cinematic heartthrobs like Clark Gable, Gary Grant, Sophia Loren or Elizabeth Taylor. …

The antihero in Tin Star struggles with his private voice. Who is he, really?  Is your private voice yours?  Are you sure about that? To help determine this, and whether your private voice is working for or against you, here are a few questions to ask yourself:  What is the general tone of your inner…

Over 163 stylish minutes, “Blade Runner 2049” wrestles with nothing less than what it means to be human. It’s too soon to tell if the follow-up will have the influence and staying power of the groundbreaking original but it’s clear from the beginning that this no mere piece of nostalgic fan service. Unlike a lot…

As with great stories, the theme (Ultimate Quest) of your life story is simple – touching on ideas like family, honor, benevolence, continuity – and each subplot reiterates the theme. Without this echoing or alignment your quest is going to fall apart, somewhere. Your story can’t work without all the important elements being aligned. It…

  It’s a heist flick, carrying on the tradition of Steven Soderbergh’s “Ocean’s” trilogy (Soderbergh serves as a producer this time), with all the elaborate machinations you’ve come to expect from the series. It is crime as high art—which is fitting, given that the robbery this time takes place at The Met Gala, the annual fashion…

Al Pacino: ‘Even at 75, quitting is almost unthinkable- Sure I’m aware I’m getting old but I can still do it!’ Al Pacino looks to diversify, not retire from acting ”My younger children I had when I was older and so that’s something that I’m involved in, very much,” he said. ”Life has so much variety…

The Quest for Truth. In the Trump age the story of ‘The Post’ touches a great theme about how truthful a storyteller is and how much it is worth to have an independent press and more importantly a strong personal storyteller – you. The manipulations of our story are numerous, often impossible to recognize or calibrate,…

  The story of ‘The Sinner’ is not about ‘who done it’ but ‘why did she do it’.   What is her story? Her story gets revealed during the series- for a big part also to her because a large part of her story is unconscious.  “The Sinner,” a new murder mystery starting on Wednesday on USA,…

One of the great challenges for creative people is to know ‘when good – not perfect – is good enough’.  Creative people like the couturier Reynolds in the movie ‘Phantom Thread’ continue to pursue perfection, because they tell themselves the story, incorrectly, that greater happiness lies just around the corner – in the next goal…

Every payday, garbage collector Troy Maxson (Denzel Washington) holds court in the backyard of the Pittsburgh home he shares with his wife, Rose (Viola Davis) and their son, Cory (Jovan Adepo). By Troy’s side are his two best friends, Bono (Stephen Henderson), the co-worker he’s known for decades, and a bottle of gin, which Troy…

  “Den of Thieves” opens with some text explaining just how many bank robberies occur in Los Angeles California over the span of one year—broken down by months, days, hours, and minutes. Having rolled out the stats, and they are impressive, the text concludes that “Los Angeles in the bank robbery capital of the world.”…

What a gem of a film! the Spanish film-maker Isabel Coixet has made.  She refuses the familiar grace notes of comedy and sugary romance in favour of something more authentic, integer, awkward. The introvert Heroine’s Journey. Coixet has herself adapted this from the semi-autobiographical novel by Penelope Fitzgerald about an amiable young widow who comes to a…

“Game Night,” about game-loving partiers who get drawn into a web of danger starts out borderline ludicrous and keeps piling on improbabilities, until it leaves our world behind and become an exercise in absurdity. The main couple, Max and Annie (Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams), hosts a regular game night at their suburban home. A cleverly-edited opening montage…

Who has a why to live, can bear with almost any how. When you have a great quest, it dramatically changes your willingness to spend energy and take risk.  When the stakes are a large sum of money people don’t take great risks. When the stakes are love and life and that which has incalculable value,…

The Innocent is the part of our story that trusts life, ourselves and other people. It is the part that has faith and hope, even when on the surface things look impossible. It is the part of us that keeps the faith in whatever it is we are hoping for. It is also the part…

Asked what it takes to be a great writer, Ernest Hemingway replied  ‘a built in shock proof crap detector. We all have a crap detector – some better than others, some exquisitely on the mark, some tragically deficient. It is our evaluative inner voice, an absolutely viral instrument that enables us – privately at least to…

With every story, it is vital that one understand the purpose behind what is being said. The critical first step to getting our stories right is ensuring that the story we are telling at the moment is aligned with our ultimate mission in life, a phrase I use largely interchangeable with ‘quest’ – as in…

As its very name suggests, a movie’s primary intention is to move the audience emotionally. Story is the vehicle through which the movement occurs. Story is what stirs us, terrifies us, breaks our heart. A boring story fails because it doesn’t move us, doesn’t tap our capacity for empathy. Think of the very best stories…

The stories we tell become powerful when they have characters with archetypal qualities.  Archetypes that have been with us since the dawn of time. We see them reflected in recurring images in art, literature, myth, music, movies and we know they are archetypal because they are found everywhere, in all times and places.  Because the characters…