Meek's Cutoff (2010)

With prodigious craft, director Kelly Reichardt once again sustains a muted tension immune to both cliché and melodrama. Meek's Cutoff quietly yet assuredly casts its spell of contained suspense and wild, rugged beauty. To read the rest of the review, visit KCActive.com.

Everything Must Go (2010)

1993's Short Cuts proved that adapting Carver's stories to film is a difficult task. In the hands of a virtuoso like Robert Altman, it resulted in a confused hodgepodge of plot lines and characters. Forced to extrapolate to fill a protracted timeline with motive, character and subplot, Rush falls prey to exposition, and many of his choices prove problematical. Inevitable comparisons to the source material aside, Everything Must Go just isn't a very good movie. For the rest of the review, visit KCActive.com.

Women in Trouble (2009)

Adrienne Palicki steals her scenes as an air-headed wannabe porn star in this entertaining but not very memorable film that intercuts among the lives of six women in Los Angeles in a single 24-hour time span. Connie Britton does a fair turn as the judgemental sister with a shady past.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

The film version makes it easy to forget that the story in the novel is Chief's. By centering the narrative around Mac, with Nicholson doing his usual clowning, the sympathy lies with the institution--Nurse Rached as its scapegoat--in its attempt to keep the other inmates safe from showboating and inanity. Mac is the anti-Cool Hand Luke in his selfishness and lack of impulse control. Also, he fails in his dare.

Never on Sunday (1960)

Homer, American amateur philosopher, makes it his mission to disabuse Greek prostitute Ilya from her notion that all Greek tragedies happily end with a trip to the seaside. In doing so, he makes a pact with the local pimp, which then causes a working-girl labor strike. The film craftily gets around the idealization of independent whoring by then marrying Ilya off to an Italian. Melina Mercouri outshines her co-star, but it's still disturbing to see her surrounded by the tide of men in the ocean. The film would have benefited from either being wackier or more serious.

Friday Night Lights (2006-2011)

More a portrait of a marriage than a show about football, this series deserves a wider audience. Connie Britton steals the show, but the supporting cast offers great teen drama that beats anything the 90210 franchise has provided. The second season suffered from the writers' strike, but gets back the rhythm in the storylines that follow.

World's Greatest Dad (2009)

Through a well-written suicide note and accompanying journal, high school poetry teacher and aspiring novelist Lance (Robin Williams) creates a folk hero out of his creepy, mean son, dead from autoerotic asphyxiation. Williams performs outstandingly well, and there are quite a few other surprises in the mix. Not as clever or macabre as Heathers, it would hold its own against one of my faves, Election.

London to Brighton (2006)

Lorraine Stanley and Georgia Groome give outstanding performances as prostitutes trying outrun the son of a London mobster they may or may not have killed. I could take or leave the non-linear narrative that ends with a whimper. But never mind, it's the chemistry between the two leads that keeps the interest.

Room (2005)

Julia, a Texan living paycheck to paycheck, robs the bingo hall where she works and takes off to New York in search of an empty warehouse room. The reality depicted in the first 30 minutes or so is fascinating and heart-wrenching. But it all ends once Julia reaches New York. Director/writer Kyle Henry shouldn't try to find meaning elsewhere when he's pegged it on the first go.

Prom (2011)

Disney's Prom aspires to be ranked among the most iconic teen movies but even its nods to the greats play as shopworn and easily anticipated. Writer Katie Wech's screenplay goes overboard on earnestness and is more deserving of a comparison to a “Stepford” movie than any of John Hughes' best.

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Water for Elephants (2011)

For the movie adaptation of Sara Gruen's bestselling novel, director Francis Lawrence (Constantine, I Am Legend) shortcuts any actual filmmaking to create set pieces that joylessly propels the story forward to its inevitable conclusion. Made for its built-in audience, Water for Elephants shamelessly relies on a familiarity with the source material, as well as its star power.
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Certified Copy (2010)

Writer/director Abbas Kiarostami digs deep to deliver an engaging film that dissects ideas without being overwhelmed by them. Certified Copy transforms a merely charming start into a spellbinding mystery.
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