Film
by Jack Brown | Jul 30, 2009 | Film
BrunoDirected by Larry Charles. Written by Sacha Baron Cohen, Anthony Hines, Dan Mazer, and Jeff Schaffer. With Sacha Baron Cohen, Gustaf Hammarsten, Clifford Banagale, Bono, Elton John, Slash, Snoop Dogg, Sting, Paula Abdul, and Harrison Ford. (R)There's really...
by Jack Brown | Jun 25, 2013 | Film
Being a theater manager offers many rewards, but glory is generally not one of them. I can say this with some authority, having managed Northampton’s now departed Pleasant Street Theater for a number of years. Do the job well, and you’ll most often...
by Jack Brown | Aug 6, 2009 | Film
Harry Potter and The Half-Blood PrinceDirected by David Yates. Written by Steve Kloves, based on the book by J.K. Rowling. With Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Michael Gambon, Bonnie Wright, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Jim Broadbent, Tom Felton,...
by Jack Brown | Jul 2, 2013 | Film
It was supposedly Margaret Mead who first uttered the phrase immortalized on car bumpers everywhere: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” It’s a great...
by Jack Brown | Aug 13, 2009 | Film
Funny PeopleWritten and directed by Judd Apatow. With Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Leslie Mann, Eric Bana, Jonah Hill, Jason Schwartzman, Aubrey Plaza, and RZA. (R) Any film connected to Funny People director Judd Apatow promises a few sure things: raunchy, juvenile...
by Jack Brown | Jul 9, 2013 | Film
When it comes to American film directors, those few who can command a popular festival can be broadly cast into one of two columns. On one side are the Woody Allens—the man himself, obviously, but also his many followers (and, by now, followers of followers):...
by Jack Brown | Aug 20, 2009 | Film
In The LoopDirected by Armando Iannucci. Written by Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Ian Martin, and Tony Roche. With Peter Capaldi, Tom Hollander, Gina McKee, James Gandolfini, and Chris Addison. (NR)In The Loop, a scathing (and scathingly funny)...
by Jack Brown | Jul 16, 2013 | Film
For all the World War II stories our filmmakers have told over the years, some of the most dramatic stories to emerge from that time came in the years that followed the war itself. One of those was the capture and subsequent trial of Adolf Eichmann. The architect of...
by Jack Brown | Aug 27, 2009 | Film
District 9 (3 1/2 stars)Directed by Neill Blomkamp. Written by Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell. With Sharlto Copley, Jason Cope, Nathalie Boltt, Sylvaine Strike, and Elizabeth Mkandawie. (R)For a day or two after watching District 9, I was torn about the film. On...
by Jack Brown | Sep 17, 2013 | Film
Now in its 65th year, the Northfield Drive-In remains one of our region’s most enduring testaments to our love of movies. Located on the border of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, the summer destination attracts untold thousands of filmgoers—the open-air...
by Jack Brown | Sep 3, 2009 | Film
PonyoWritten and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. With Noah Lindsey Cyrus, Frankie Jonas, Tina Fey, Liam Neeson, Cate Blanchett, Betty White, Cloris Leachman and Lily Tomlin. (G)From the opening scenes of Ponyo, director Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, Howl's Moving...
by Tom Sturm | Aug 21, 2013 | Film
You can always tell that someone is passionate about their work when they can’t wait to drag you right into the middle of it. It’s a characteristic that’s especially apparent in people who’ve succeeded in creative or constructive...
by Jack Brown | Sep 10, 2009 | Film
Inglourious BasterdsWritten and directed by Quentin Tarantino. With Brad Pitt, Melanie Laurent, Christoph Waltz, Eli Roth, Michael Fassbender, Diane Kruger, Daniel Bruhl, Til Schweiger, B.J. Novak, Omar Doom, August Diehl, Mike Myers, and Julie Dreyfus. (R)If...
by Jack Brown | Aug 28, 2013 | Film
Werner Herzog has always been a great director, and one who has, from the start, marched to his own very personal drumbeat. While it was his earlier art house features that made his name—films like Fitzcarraldo, Stroszek, and Aguirre: Wrath of God—it has...
by Jack Brown | Sep 17, 2009 | Film
Cold SoulsWritten and directed by Sophie Barthes. With Paul Giamatti, Dina Korzun, Emily Watson, David Strathairn, Katheryn Winnick, Lauren Ambrose, and Boris Kievsky. (PG-13)Cold Souls is one of a recently popular subset of films: the science fiction movie that takes...
by Jack Brown | Oct 16, 2013 | Film
In an area rich with film festivals, retrospectives and assorted special screenings, the Northampton International Film Festival continues to be a major player on the scene. Now in its 17th year, the NoHoIFF always takes place here—this year, like last, it is...
by Jack Brown | Sep 24, 2009 | Film
9Directed by Shane Acker. Written by Pamela Pettler, based on a story by Shane Acker. With Elijah Wood, Christopher Plummer, Martin Landau, John C. Reilly, Crispin Glover, and Jennifer Connelly. (PG-13)The new Gothic-tinged sci-fi fantasia 9, directed by Shane Acker...
by Jack Brown | Sep 3, 2013 | Film
You don’t have to be a fan of kung fu films to know about Bruce Lee. The iconic actor, gone now for four decades, probably did more to popularize the genre than just about anyone, and while his films may not seem as artistically fussed-over as some of those they...
by Jack Brown | Oct 1, 2009 | Film
The Informant!Directed by Steven Soderbergh. Written by Scott Z. Burns, based on the book by Kurt Eichenwald. With Matt Damon, Scott Bakula, Joel McHale, Melanie Lynskey, Lucas McHugh Carroll, Eddie Jemison, and Rusty Schwimmer. (R)In the early 1990s, the FBI was...
by Jack Brown | Sep 10, 2013 | Film
There is nothing more routine than the process of turning books into movies. Most often they are hurled, spineless, into some roiling vat somewhere in California, where a rotating team of screenwriters and script doctors take turns stirring the pot. It’s a long...
by Jack Brown | Oct 8, 2009 | Film
Seraphine Directed by Martin Provost. Written by Marc Abdelnour and Martin Provost. With Yolande Moreau, Ulrich Tukur, Anne Bennent, Genevieve Mnich, Nico Rogner, and Adwlaide Leroux. (NR)Over the course of two hours, Seraphine manages to take a tour through many of...
by Jack Brown | Oct 1, 2013 | Film
Every year for a while now, Valley filmgoers have had the chance to be part of a truly global film phenomenon thanks to the return of the Manhattan Short Film Festival. Arriving in area theaters just before the approaching autumn, the festival—now in its 16th...
by Jack Brown | Oct 15, 2009 | Film
Bright StarWritten and directed by Jane Campion. With Abbie Cornish, Ben Whishaw, Paul Schneider, Thomas Sangster, Kerry Fox, Samuel Barnett, and Edie Martin. (PG)It can't ever be easy to make a film about a poet. The act itself is most often a solitary affair on...
by Jack Brown | Oct 8, 2013 | Film
For nearly nine months now, people have been telling me to get some sleep. When you tell people that your wife is expecting, it seems to be the natural response, especially from anyone who has had kids of their own. I’ve tried to take the advice to heart, but...
by Jack Brown | Oct 22, 2009 | Film
Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. GoldbergDirected by Aviva Kempner. With Gertrude Berg, Lewis Berg, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sara Chase, Viola Harris, and Norman Lear. (NR)If you've never heard of Gertrude Berg, you know her legacy. Called "The First Lady of Radio" and the...
by Jack Brown | Sep 24, 2013 | Film
If you haven’t been to Ashfield, you’ve missed out on a great local destination. A half hour northwest of Northampton, the town is brimming with the local charm of a place that is entirely comfortable in its own skin—no mere supporting player to the...
by Jack Brown | Oct 29, 2009 | Film
Where The Wild Things AreDirected by Spike Jonze. Written by Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers, based on the book by Maurice Sendak. With Max Records, Catherine Keener, Mark Ruffalo, James Gandolfini, Paul Dano, Catherine O'Hara, Forest Whitaker, and Chris Cooper....
by Jack Brown | Aug 20, 2013 | Film
One of the great and beautiful mysteries of art is its timelessness. How we view it, of course, has changed through the centuries—we’ve gone from caves to churches to museums, from worshiping masses singing together to silent museum-goers, each with an...
by Advocate Staff | Nov 5, 2009 | Film
The 15th annual Northampton Independent Film Festival presents three films this week: Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, an award-winning documentary; Orgasm, Inc. (a still from which is pictured), a documentary that offers an inside look at drug trials for what is...
by Jack Brown | Oct 22, 2013 | Film
To say that Jim Henson had an influence on my childhood is like saying the Beatles had an influence on late 20th-century pop music. The reach of his artistry is so vast that even if it’s not apparent, it’s highly likely that whatever children’s story...
by Jack Brown | Nov 5, 2009 | Film
A Serious ManWritten and directed by Ethan Coen and Joel Coen. With Michael Stuhlbarg, Richard Kind, Fred Melamed, Sari Lennick, Aaron Wolff, Jessica McManus, and Peter Breitmayer. (R) In the opening scenes of A Serious Man, a shtetl-dwelling farmer makes the grave...
by Jack Brown | Oct 30, 2013 | Film
When we think of the local film scene here in the Valley, we often think, naturally, of the many small theaters that still dot the area, providing college towns a central hub for both arts and community get-togethers. We’re lucky enough still to have the...
by Jack Brown | Nov 12, 2009 | Film
AmreekaWritten and directed by Cherien Dabis. With Nisreen Faour, Melkar Muallem, Hiam Abbass, Alia Shawkat, and Jenna Kawar. (PG-13)Over the last year, there has been a welcome influx of films that concern themselves with the often strained relations among Arabs,...
by James Heflin | Jul 23, 2013 | Film
If you know of the filmmaker Tom Joslin, that may well be because you’ve seen footage of his last days. In the early ’90s, Joslin and his partner of 22 years, Mark Massi, were both dying of AIDS. Joslin, a former Hampshire College professor, had long...
by Jack Brown | Nov 19, 2009 | Film
The Men Who Stare At GoatsDirected by Grant Heslov. Written by Peter Straughan, based on a book by Jon Ronson. With George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges, Stephen Lang, and Robert Patrick. (R) Look a bit further down this page and you'll spot a reference to...
by Jack Brown | Nov 12, 2013 | Film
Growing up, I was very much a comic book kid. My friends and I lived just a few blocks from the local shop, and we would often skim change off the top of our lunch money so that we could make a pit stop on the way home to pick up a new issue of Alpha Flight or check...
by Jack Brown | Nov 26, 2009 | Film
The Yes Men Fix The WorldDirected by Andy Bichlbaum, Mike Bonanno, and Kurt Engfehr. Written by Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno. With Reggie Watts, Mike Bonanno, and Andy Bichlbaum. (NR)In The Yes Men Fix The World, Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno play a hell of a...
by Pete Redington | Nov 5, 2013 | Film
When he was 10 years old, Bay Stater Jeff Belanger heard that his friend’s historic house was haunted by ghosts. Immediately intrigued, he requested a sleepover. That night, Ouija board in hand, the two boys attempted to contact the spirits squatting with his...
by Jack Brown | Dec 3, 2009 | Film
The MaidDirected by Sebastian Silva. Written by Sebastian Silva and Pedro Peirano. With Catalina Saavedra, Claudia Celedon, Alejandro Goic, Andrea Garcia-Huidobro, and Mariana Loyola. (NR)From the start of The Maid, when a Chilean family attempts to celebrate the...
by Jack Brown | Jul 23, 2013 | Film
Years ago, I traveled to Israel to visit a friend for a few weeks one summer. We rented a car and tooled up and down the countryside, visiting a remarkably diverse landscape. For a relatively small country, Israel contains a stunning diversity: from snowy mountains to...
by Jack Brown | Dec 10, 2009 | Film
An EducationDirected by Lone Scherfig. Written by Nick Hornby, based on the memoir by Lynn Barber. With Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard, Olivia Williams, Alfred Molina, Dominic Cooper, Rosamund Pike, and Emma Thompson. (PG-13)In the new coming of age film An...
by Jack Brown | Jul 30, 2013 | Film
First off, a mea culpa. A couple of columns back, I made a little mistake. I was covering a local screening of Lawrence of Arabia, and while rushing to meet a deadline I zigged when I should have zagged, naming Alec Guinness as the man who played the title role. Of...
by Jack Brown | Dec 17, 2009 | Film
Fantastic Mr. FoxDirected by Wes Anderson. Written by Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach, based on the book by Roald Dahl. With George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Wallace Wolodarsky, Michael Gambon, Willem Dafoe and Owen Wilson. (PG)Fantastic...
by Jack Brown | Aug 6, 2013 | Film
If there is any defining cultural aspect of our American experience, it must be our mania for celebrity. More than democracy and certainly more than jazz, our country’s pulse throbs in time to the comings and goings of our actors, musicians and newsmakers....
by Tom Sturm | Dec 24, 2009 | Film
Director Frank Capra's It's A Wonderful Life is a slightly religious/spiritual parable about a man (played by Jimmy Stewart) who is forced by an angel, at the moment of his Christmas Eve suicide attempt, to reflect upon what he sees as a failed and relatively...
by Jack Brown | Aug 13, 2013 | Film
Baseball and the movies are a natural pairing. Our two great national pastimes, they have come together in any number of stories over the years. Some of them are honey-tinged tales of dreams made real (The Rookie, The Natural) while others focus on the tobacco, spit...
by Jack Brown | Dec 24, 2009 | Film
The MessengerDirected by Oren Moverman. Written by Alessandro Camon and Oren Moverman. With Ben Foster, Woody Harrelson, Samantha Morton, Steve Buscemi, Jena Malone, Eamonn Walker, and Yaya DaCosta. (R)It's easy, perhaps dangerously so, to think that we know all...
by Jack Brown | Oct 30, 2013 | Film
As a boy, I heard many, many, times about the day my mother sat next to Bobby Kennedy at church. My mom, the daughter of a fisherman and a factory worker, was born and raised on the Massachusetts shore. She was both a Catholic school girl and an early advocate for...
by Jack Brown | Dec 31, 2009 | Film
ArmoredDirected by Nimrod Antal. Written by James V. Simpson. With Matt Dillon, Columbus Short, Jean Reno, Laurence Fishburne, Amaury Nolasco, Milo Ventimiglia, aand Skeet Ulrich. (PG-13)A look at the cast list of Armored should have tipped me off. Though it's...
by Jack Brown | Jan 7, 2014 | Film
Sex in America has never been a simple thing. One look at the outfits from the Mayflower days gives us a hint: eight layers of leggings and a collar high, wide, and priestly enough to act as a moral dam. Those early colonists may have been searching for a new freedom,...
by Jack Brown | Jan 7, 2010 | Film
Sherlock HolmesDirected by Guy Ritchie. Written by Michael Robert Johnson, Anthony Peckham and Simon Kinberg, based on characters by Arthur Conan Doyle. With Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams, Mark Strong, Kelly Reilly, and Eddie Marsan. (PG-13)Guy...
by Jack Brown | Apr 2, 2014 | Film
Now in its ninth year, The Pioneer Valley Jewish Film Festival (PVJFF) has become a driving force in bringing Jewish-oriented films big and small to area screens. The annual festival’s strong mix of subjects and styles—documentaries and dramas sit side by...
by Mark Roessler | Jan 7, 2010 | Film
I would have enjoyed Avatar a whole lot more if I hadn't said I'd write about it.Without the obligation of putting words to paper, if you'd asked me what I thought, right after the credits started to roll and the lights came up, I might have said...
by Jack Brown | Mar 26, 2014 | Film
Any film director worth caring about is sure to have enemies. For everyone who sees Scorsese as a keen chronicler of the American male’s id, there’s another who thinks he’s nothing but a machismo-obsessed director stuck in the past. You like...
by Jack Brown | Jan 14, 2010 | Film
Sometimes it feels as if there just isn’t anything on. You might think it a problem relegated to the world of television, where—even with hundreds of channels at our fingertips—it occasionally seems that we’ve seen it all before, including the...
by Jack Brown | Feb 5, 2014 | Film
You might think that the holiday season is over and done with, but for the film industry, it’s about to be December all over again. The 2014 Oscar nominations are out, and it’s proved to be an interesting year—not only because of some of the films...
by Jack Brown | Jan 14, 2010 | Film
Among athletes, runners are a unique breed. Their sport—really more of a lifestyle to many—is, in a lot of ways, athleticism boiled down to its essence. There are no balls or sticks, no pads or helmets, no courts, fields or rings; in the end, there is only...
by Jack Brown | Mar 19, 2014 | Film
It sometimes seems there is no mystery left in our lives these days. In our oversaturated information age, just about anything you can think up has a tutorial video up on YouTube, be it changing a faucet or crocheting a fake beard (4,830 results, by the way). We know...
by Jack Brown | Jan 21, 2010 | Film
The Imaginarium of Doctor ParnassusDirected by Terry Gilliam. Written by Terry Gilliam and Charles McKeown. With Christopher Plummer, Heath Ledger, Andrew Garfield, Lily Cole, Verne Troyer, Johnny Depp, Jude Law, Colin Farrell, and Tom Waits. (PG-13)When Heath Ledger...
by Jack Brown | Feb 12, 2014 | Film
We modern Americans have something of a short attention span. It seems hard-wired into our national character to always be on the go, and we like to consume just about everything in short, quick bursts. We get our coffee in paper cups at a window (who has time to get...
