Cinema Therapy
Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures
Cinema Therapy: It's the little things that make 'Big Miracle' great
“Big Miracle” stars Drew Barrymore as Rachel Kramer and John Krasinski (“The Office”) as Adam Carlson. “Big Miracle” could have been a Big Boring Mess, but it wasn’t. The director paints by the numbers, but there is a reason those numbers are there – because they work. Adam Carlson is covering stories in Alaska and wondering when his career will take off. When whales get stranded behind a wall of ice, he breaks the story and the town of Barro...
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Photo courtesy of Golem Distribución
Cinema Therapy: Viewers warned to stay far away from 'A Separation'
An Iranian husband, Nader (Peymann Maoadi) is desperate to keep his wife Simin (Leila Hatami) from moving out and leaving the country. He has his father with Alzheimer’s and their daughter to think about. He tries to keep it all together after his wife moves out, but the hired caretaker for his father creates problems that lead to going to “court” and a jail time verdict. “A Separation” has moments of human emotion and drama. The daughter wa...
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Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures
Cinema Therapy: ‘Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close’ dares to go deep
You see an image of a man falling, head first, in the sky. Falling, silently falling. This image sets the tone for the rest of “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.” (Magnolia.) “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” is a moving tale of a young boy, Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn), who finds himself on a mission to discover the answer to a nagging question: “What did my father want me to discover?” His father, Thomas Schell (Tom Hanks), who is t...
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Photo courtesy of Film4
Cinema Therapy: Courage makes ‘Iron Lady’ worthy of praise
Three that bored and one that soared. I couldn’t resist the rhyme, but it’s not really true. All three movies—“War Horse,” “Carnage” and “The Artist” are fine productions, but each one in its own way lacked that “je ne se qua”—that certain something that it needed to give it that extra star. In “War Horse,” a horse with a lot of heart is recruited for military use in WWII England. Its owner vows to see his horse again. What follows is dr...
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Photos courtesy of MGM
Cinema Therapy: Great acting leaves its mark on ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’
“The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” is a remake of a Swedish film from 2010 that is based on a successful novel by the Swedish writer, Stieg Larsson. Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) is still grieving the loss of his lovely niece, Harriet Vanger, who disappeared 40 years ago. He lures a disgraced journalist, Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig), to search for the killer of his niece with the promise he will help him vanquish his billionaire foe. ...
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Photos courtesy of 20th Century Fox
Cinema Therapy: Freud’s rich life highlighted in ‘A Dangerous Method’
“A Dangerous Method” is a well-crafted story of the relationship between Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) and Carl Jung (Michael Fassbinder,) his protégé, and how Jung helped Freud create psychoanalysis. It is really more about Freud’s relationship with a patient who has been badly abused by her father. Using the “talking cure,” Jung is able to greatly improve her health. She becomes a student of psychoanalysis, but not before Jung decides to b...
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Cinema Therapy: Families will be captivated by ‘We Bought a Zoo’
In “We Bought a Zoo,” a single father, Benjamin Mee (Matt Damon), decides to give his kids a fresh start, in a new house, after losing his wife to cancer. When he finds the perfect house, however, he learns it comes with a little baggage: a non-functioning zoo and a zoo crew. Benjamin Mee’s son, Dylan Mee (Collin Ford), is acting out his pain by acting up in school and getting expelled for stealing. If that weren’t enough, he is drawing horr...
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Photo courtesy of The Weinstein Company
Cinema Therapy: Music makes ‘My Week with Marilyn’ a wonderful journey
Young Colin is in love with the movies, just as I was when I was his age. Just as I drove through the studio streets of Paramount and Warner Bros., Colin drove in awe through the streets at Pinewood Studio in “My Week with Marilyn.” This film is the story of Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams) and how she triumphed over her anxieties with the aid of a young film worker, Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne). “Marilyn” succeeds at being what movies are...
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Cinema Therapy: ‘Young Goethe in Love’ is a compelling must see drama
“Young Goethe in Love” is based on the fictionalized memoir that Johann Goethe wrote when he was a young man in love. The story was actually the telling of his deep love affair with a young lady he met in Wetzlar, Germany, where he was sent to do a law apprenticeship after theatrically failing his final law exam. No matter, young Goethe (Alexander Fehling) is a confident poet who is sure his book will bring him fame and fortune. Like so many ...
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Photo courtesy of GK Films and Paramount Pictures
‘Hugo’ runs long but charming themes run deep
“Hugo” is the story of a young lad, Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield), who lives in the upper reaches of a train station in Paris in 1930. He had a father (Jude Law) who had been attentive and full of healthy optimism, until he was killed in a mysterious accident. After his father’s death, Hugo was taken by his uncle to live in the train station to help keep the gigantic clocks running. Hugo’s father was working on refurbishing an odd mechanical ...
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