Jessica Chastain

Imagine becoming a foster parent for the first time and your task is to raise two small children who have lived isolated in an abandoned cabin for five years. And as if that isn’t challenging enough, the girls are also being haunted by a spirit that has followed them from the cabin. This is the scenario in the new horror film Mama. The story begins with disturbing events in which the girls&#...[Read More]

Back when running moonshine in the hills of Virginia was a logical fair trade to counter-balance the social effects of alcohol prohibition, three brothers used their massive stills and the eldest sibling’s quiet brawn to distribute what in theory was booze, but was also potent enough to run a motor vehicle if need be. The Bondurant brothers – Jack, Howard, and Forrest – distill “White Lightning” i...[Read More]

Countless works by William Shakespeare have been adapted for the movies since the dawn of cinema. The canonical masterpieces have seen every iteration imaginable – from cartoons to gothic chamber pieces to full-blown five hour epics. These ubiquitous plays are part of the cultural consciousness – the names Hamlet, Macbeth, or Richard III and their tragic fates are known to most, so even if a movie...[Read More]

I, as did many women in this country, read the book The Help, so the movie was on warning in my head to deliver the goods and stay true to Kathryn Stockett’s novel, or else. It did. And one of the reasons it succeeded is the fact that Stockett’s childhood friend (since the age of five) Tate Taylor serves as both writer and director of the new film adaptation. Taylor (a mostly unknown actor who had...[Read More]

Terrence Malick’s new drama, The Tree of Life, is reminiscent of his previous work, such as The Thin Red Line (1998), in that it is a film that focuses largely on ideas brought to life through cinematography. Although The Tree of Life does revolve around the story of a family, the movie is structured more through concept than plot. For example, the story isn’t told in a familiar, linear fashion, b...[Read More]