2009 Year in Review by Helen Geib
by HELEN GEIB
This post is not the best films of 2009, although some of the best films of the year are on this list. It’s also not my favorite films of 2009, although some of those are on this list too. This post is the year in review: a look back, month-by-month, at the state of moviegoing in 2009, in Indianapolis – fly-over country in microcosm. Read more 
Movie Review – Following (1999)
by NIR SHALEV
A young man wants to be a writer. In his tight little London flat, he sits by the window and types away on a typewriter at a crawling pace. He is out of ideas. As a matter of fact, he hasn’t got any. So he takes to the streets, following strangers randomly and observing where they go and what they do. One day he follows a man wearing a suit and carrying a large sports bag into a coffee shop. On his way out, the suit sits down at the writer’s table and tells him he knows he’s been following him. They get to know one another. The suit happens to be a burglar. Read more
Thinking Outside the Multiplex
by MIKE MACCOLLUM
Two films from India and one from Europe (a double Academy Award nominee, no less) make their way to Indiana theaters on Friday – while at least fourteen other films open out of state, and a number of interesting films and festivals will be showing throughout Indiana this week as well. For all of the details – plus this week’s complete listing of films opening in limited release around the country – read on below…. Read more
DVD of the Week – Review of The Damned United (2009)
by HELEN GEIB
2009 saw a raft of great male lead performances. One of them was by Michael Sheen as charismatic, controversial, and colorful ’70s English football coach Brian Clough in The Damned United. The movie and the performance went mostly unnoticed, at least in the U.S. where the film had a limited release on the arthouse circuit, but with luck will find their audience on DVD. Read more
Rewind: Films of the 60s, 70s, 80s – John and Mary (1969)
by RICHARD WINTERS
Considered provocative at the time of its release, this film detailed the new phenomenon of the one-night-stand, a movie fad in the late 60s, early 70s that quickly went out of style upon the release of Looking for Mr. Goodbar in 1977. The story here is about a rather nondescript man and woman (played by Dustin Hoffman and Mia Farrow) who meet at a singles bar and then go back to his place for sex. The rest of the film involves them considering whether it can develop into a relationship. Read more
Movie Review – Crazy Heart (2009)
by HELEN GEIB
Early in Crazy Heart, faded country music star Bad Blake (Jeff Bridges) is asked by neophyte reporter Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal), destined to be the next in a long line of women loved and lost, to name today’s “real” country artists. Bad’s real country credentials are never in doubt: he is the embodiment of the popular culture image of Authentic Country Singer-Songwriter, an alchemical combination of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Steve Earle. Age, the cruel effects of decades of hard-living, and changing popular taste have reduced him to playing bars in small towns in the Southwest, backed by pickup bands and living in old highway motels as run-down as he is. Read more
New Poll – Best Picture “Should Win” Pick
by HELEN GEIB
If you were an Academy voter, which movie would you vote for for Best Picture?
Movie Review – Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010)
by HELEN GEIB
Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief is adapted from the first book in a successful fantasy series for young adults by Rick Riordan. The premise: the Greek gods are real; are alive and well; and are up to their old tricks, including incessant a) fighting among themselves and b) seducing unwitting mortals. Oh, and tired of their native land’s endless warfare and poverty, at some point they immigrated to America en masse. Actually I just made up the reason. The movie doesn’t provide any explanation for why the Greek gods have taken up residence in, above, and beneath the US. Read more
Thinking Outside the Multiplex
by MIKE MACCOLLUM
If February 12 represented a relative famine, then this Friday is much more of a feast, with eight movies (well, six movies, and two collections of shorts) opening in Indiana. (And who cares if the majority of these movies won’t have that many shows? I’m glad that they’ll be here at all….) Also, many more movies are opening out of state this week, compared to last week- and it was just announced that a horror movie with a very cool cast will be making its way to Indiana (and Kentucky) in April. For all of this and more, more, more, read on below…. Read more
Movie Review – The Wolfman (2010)
by NIR SHALEV
I haven’t seen Universal’s 1941 classic The Wolf Man upon which The Wolfman is based, so I will review this new movie without drawing comparisons. Lawrence Talbot (Benicio Del Toro) is an expatriate English actor who became famous touring America, performing in Shakespearean plays. He is performing in London when he receives a letter stating that his brother Ben is missing. Upon arrival at his family’s country estate, he is informed that Ben had been murdered and two potential classes of killer are suspected: a large beast with claws or an escaped lunatic from an asylum. Lawrence appoints himself as detective and follows clues, asks questions in town and even investigates the nearby gypsy camp where he is attacked and bitten by a large wolf. Audiences will immediately guess that, because Lawrence had been bitten by a werewolf he will eventually become one himself and they would be right. But that’s only the beginning. Read more
