Still doing less damage than men

When tackling multiple far-reaching topics in one breath (women, film, 2010), I prefer general statements based on feelings more than fact. But since this commentary is being published in a print journal of some repute, let’s get some nuts and bolts out of the way, to placate fact checkers and balance the ill-researched opinions below.

In 2010, films were made, released and seen by the American public. Some films included women. My credentials as a film writer are no more or less qualified than the average Josephine, albeit one still star-struck by Billy Wilder and the MGM back lot. I have hope for the future of film, because if it truly is darkest before the dawn then I say to you, “Start the oatmeal! It can’t get much darker!”

Six films to consider during a full holiday season
The Chronicles of Narnia:
The Voyage of the Dawn  Ben Barnes, Georgie Henley, William Moseley and William Poulter take on the next chapter of the popular C.S. Lewis series, but will this creative lion roar as loudly as its previous incarnations? Truth be told, it’s hard to keep up with all the sequels and 3D mania of late—aren’t we all a bit hungry for a real story?  That said, here’s what you can expect here: Edmund and Lucy Pevensie, along with their cousin Eustace and their royal friend King Caspian, find themselves swallowed into a painting and on to the Dawn Treader. (Hate when that happens.)

Harry gears up for his destiny in brooding 'Deathly Hallows Part 1'

It's the wheeziest of clichés when critics write that each Harry Potter movie is darker than the last. Of course they are. The point of J. K. Rowling's seven-book fantasy series is to take her protagonists on the journey from childhood innocence through traumatic adolescence, and into the perils, responsibilities and consequences of adulthood. The metaphor for this interior journey is the kids' progress through the seven levels of school, which is in turn a metaphor for one's progress through life—which gets darker and more complex as you go along.

The interior journey of Harry and his friends is the heart of the books, along with the notion that choices made along the way can come back to haunt or reward you as life goes on.

Films This Week
Check out the movies playing around town.
With reviews and trailers.

Climber's amazing survival story makes for gripping '127 Hours'

he story of Aron Ralston is a real-life thriller. An experienced young rock-climber and "canyoneer" from Colorado, Ralston was on an impromptu weekend trek into the remote Utah outback in April, 2003, when a freak accident left him stranded at the bottom of a deep crevice with his right arm pinned between the rockface and an immovable boulder. As the days wore on, hallucinating, and at the end of his single thermos of water, Ralston had to make an impossible decision: lose his arm or lose his life.

Films This Week
Check out the movies playing around town.
With reviews and trailers.

Films This Week
Check out the movies playing around town.
With reviews and trailers.

Actress, character soar in 'Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest'

he devil finally gets her due, and it's a glorious thing to behold, in The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. In this third and final installment of the gritty, uncompromising Swedish film trilogy based on the globally bestselling Stieg Larsson novels, the devil in question is, of course, Lisbeth Salander—at least as far as the old boy's club of aging white males in the corrupt, clandestine inner circle of Sweden's power elite are concerned. To the series’ legion of fans, especially women, Lisbeth is an avenging angel who refuses to back down in the face of overwhelming male power. And in her third outing as tough, resourceful, utterly implacable Lisbeth, actress Noomi Rapace proves why she’s cinema’s Woman of the Year for 2010.

Remember The Producers? Zero Mostel plays a small-time theatrical producer who realizes he can make a ton more money on Broadway with a flop than a hit. All he has to do is raise a few thousand percent of production costs from a bunch of small investors willing to be suckered into sinking their life savings into what they're told is a sure thing. As soon as the show folds on opening night with no profits to divide, investments are written off as a bad bet, investors get skunked, and the shyster perps walk away with all the dough.

This is essentially the same scenario by which the American financial services industry crashed the U.S. economy and fomented international financial collapse in September 2008, according to Charles Ferguson's cogent, clear-headed documentary Inside Job.