image courtesy of eyeforfilm.co.uk It’s a Wonderful Life is my favorite movie. All most people remember about it is the “seeing the world without you in it” alternate reality, though that’s barely any of the film. The real power of the film is the trajectory of George Bailey’s life and how all the pieces lead to the inciting incidents that make Clarence’s arrival so important. As I stumble through Anne Hathaway’s filmography, this film feels like the start of a different care

image courtesy of avclub.com Paul Graff (Banks Repeta) is an eleven-year-old Jewish kid growing up in Queens in 1980 who just wants to draw and be friends with Johnny (Johnny David), the Black kid in his class who gets treated way worse by their teacher for the exact same troublemaking. Paul’s grandpa Aaron (Anthony Hopkins) is the one person who actually believes in his art and tries to teach him to notice injustice instead of looking away from it, but after Paul and Johnny

image courtesy of variety.com When I discuss parenting with anyone, my line is typically that is both the greatest and worst thing you will ever do. Raising a child (or two in my case) is incredibly rewarding, especially when you see them learn and grow, taking lessons you've given them and becoming their own little people. But along with that pride and joy comes unending stress, anxiety, and panic that you will ruin your child, your child will become a terrible person (and i

image courtesy of gq-magazine.co.uk Making a good romantic comedy is incredibly difficult - way harder than people give the genre credit for. You need chemistry that actually sparks on screen, a plot that doesn't collapse the second you poke at it, jokes that land without undercutting the emotional stakes, and an ending that feels earned instead of just contractually obligated. Most attempts flame out on at least one of those fronts. Think about how many romcoms lean on a "bi

image courtesy of IMDb.com The best movie twists are not detrimental to the success of the film. But if a movie depends on one that completely dismantles the entire structure of the film, it better be a master stroke and not, say, the entire series is going on inside an autistic child’s head (props to any reader who understands the reference). I knew the twist going into this one, which didn’t help. But, man oh man. Spoilers ahead. Baker Dill (Matthew McConaughey) a fisherman

Image courtesy of rottentomatoes.com I love Ocean’s Eleven. Probably more than I should. Ocean’s Twelve didn’t do much for me, though I’ve only watched it once. And I still haven’t gotten around to Thirteen — I think I felt too burned by Twelve to bother. That’s a franchise with some steep diminishing returns, which is the mindset I brought into Ocean’s 8. The setup is classic Ocean’s, just recast: Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock), fresh out of prison, links up with Lou and asse

Image courtesy of commonsensemedia.org I was in a coma for a couple weeks when I was twenty, after a car accident. My favorite musician did not visit me. But as far as I know, every friend who did visit fell in love during their hospital visits. All of them. Without fail. Because they bonded over shared pain and a mutual love of music. Not sure many PhDs came by, though. At least two that I know of - not in anthropology. Franny (Anne Hathaway) is doing fieldwork in Morocco wh

image courtesy of bbc.co.uk I watched the first few seasons of Downton Abbey before I lost interest. My wife and I are fans of The Gilded Age, Julian Fellowes’ “American Downton,” partly because it’s filmed in part in the Stockade section of Schenectady, New York, where I work. And while this film doesn’t dive into the upstairs-downstairs themes of that era of manners, it isn’t lost on this viewer how much Jane Austen’s novels have inspired those types of movies and shows. Ja

Image courtesy of mubi.com In 1999, NBC aired a television adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, starring a host of celebrities, like Whoopi Goldberg, Gene Wilder, Christopher Lloyd, and Tina Majorino, the girl who played Deb in Napoleon Dynamite. It won some Emmys and was heralded as a great technical achievement. In my memory, it was very cheesy and, despite using the best CGI available, it looked ridiculous. It couldn’t escape the “network TV movie” quality th

image courtesy of popcrush.com Anne Hathaway's story starts in 2001, when she went from a completely unknown teenager to the star of The Princess Diaries practically overnight since her big screen debut in 2001, she's been one of the biggest stars in all of Hollywood. She spent a few years doing the wholesome teen-star thing before deliberately blowing that image up - 2005's Brokeback Mountain marked her break from teen films, and then 2006 sealed the deal: The Devil Wears Pr