Whether they’re working with pixels or pencils, animators fill us with awe. They create not just worlds from scratch but characters whose eyes and body language alone speak volumes, even if they never utter a word. The first trailer for…
2015 Half-Time: Our Favorite Films Heading Into Awards Season
I’m thrilled to be writing for The Script Lab, which offers reviews, writing tips for aspiring screenwriters, and other film news. On the site today, I offer my TSL-sanctioned list of favorite films of the year heading into awards season.…
In the Thick of It: ‘Everest’ and 7 Authors as Protagonists
Writers and filmmakers know that words and images reach only an approximate truth. Author Jon Krakauer seemed painfully aware of this when chronicling his 1996 expedition to Mount Everest in the best-selling book Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of…
Tampa Bay Internet Cat Video Festival could be catnip to animal lovers
The watch-and-share phenomenon of online cat videos comes to a live audience on Saturday in an event that aims to be the cat’s pajamas for animal lovers. The inaugural Tampa Bay Internet Cat Video Festival debuts on Saturday…
“Merchants of Doubt” Peeks Behind the Rhetorical Veil
Documentary filmmaker Robert Kenner doesn’t go in front of the camera to make a point like Michael Moore (Fahrenheit 9/11, Occupy Los Angeles) or Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold). But he’s no less of a…
Allure of the Foreign: Child 44 and 6 Thrillers Set Abroad
We have myriad euphemisms for how someone dies ahead of his time, but murder by any other name is still a ghastly business in the politically charged thriller Child 44 and other mysteries set abroad. Based on the acclaimed novel…
The Many Layers of the Late Paul Walker
Paul Walker’s piercing blue eyes stare out over a steering wheel in “Furious 7” with fiery determination that can’t help but leaving viewers feeling bittersweet. Walker died in November 2013 at age forty in a high-speed car crash during a…
The Final Four and 12 Basketball Films
With Tampa’s Amalie Arena hosting the NCAA Women’s Final Four, we can’t help but have hoop dreams. Not the renowned 1994 documentary of that name, specifically, but basketball films in general. Like other sports, basketball inspires its share of dramatic…
“The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” Not Worth The Stay
I love Judi Dench. I first noticed her in 1998’s “Shakespeare in Love,” where her tart-tongued Queen Elizabeth scored her an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. She made a hell of an impression in less than seven minutes of screen…
Oscar Contenders 2015: Best Directors
I’ll be watching the Oscars on Sunday — won’t you? Today at Word and Film, I look at the five nominees for Best Director: Wes Anderson (“The Grand Budapest Hotel”), Alejandro González Iñárritu (“Birdman”), Richard Linklater (“Boyhood”), Bennett Miller (“Foxcatcher”) and Morten…