At this lovely time of year, I’m sighing and smiling over the many ways film characters bare their hearts for the ones they love. “When Love speaks, the voice of all the gods / Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony,” Shakespeare…
Fun facts about the enchanting Amy Adams
With her effervescent personality and “beautiful face of light,” Amy Adams plays a believable ingenue. Yet the thirty-nine-year-old relishes revealing new depths. As a seductive 1970s scam artist in “American Hustle,” for instance, audiences and critics alike delight in her character’s…
The unbridled character of movie horses
“Winter’s Tale” opens on Valentine’s Day, bringing to life a mystical vision of New York City, a century-spanning love story and a character readers have adored for decades: an otherworldly white horse named Athansor, who gallops higher than clouds and…
Alexander Payne and “simple human stories”
In Alexander Payne’s films, not much happens but whole worlds change. The director and Oscar-winning screenwriter is hardly prolific, directing six features since 1996, including “Sideways,” “The Descendants,” and now “Nebraska.” Yet each bears his distinct imprint: regular people forced…
He’s got our attention, all right, all right, all right
Matthew McConaughey once embodied the laid-back good-old-guy: living in an Airstream on the beach, playing bongos naked, and choosing light action films (“Sahara”) and forgettable romantic comedies (“The Wedding Planner”) that showcased his suave, easy charm. Fast forward to…
A Mother’s Work Is Never Done
Although Kate Winslet calls her children “absolutely my everything,” the mothers she brings to life onscreen often struggle to put family first. I’ve had my eye on her since her film debut as a teen bludgeoning a friend’s mother in…
The Many Facets of Kenneth Branagh
Since his 1989 breakthrough “Henry V,” Kenneth Branagh has built a reputation for esteemed Shakespeare adaptations and performances, including a recent run performing “Macbeth” in a deconsecrated church in Manchester, England. Yet his career also crackles with pop culture, from…
Let’s Resolve to Go to the Movies
With so many book-inspired films headed our way in 2014, we lit lovers can’t help but resolve to go to the movies. Sure, the next chapters in “The Hunger Games” and “The Hobbit” sagas won’t arrive till year’s end, but…
Joaquin Phoenix and the Lost Souls Club
I really enjoyed pulling together this profile of Joaquin Phoenix, who has an affinity for lost souls. His Oscar-nominated turns as a conniving Roman emperor in “Gladiator,” country-music legend Johnny Cash in “Walk the Line,” and a disturbed World War II…