‘American Hustle’

  Don’t know if it’s the best film of the year, but I get why everyone is into American Hustle.  It’s fun.  It’s a lot more fun than most of the ‘serious’ stuff that gets promoted for awards season. As the opening title card suggests, the film is loosely based on the well known ABSCAM stings […]

Lee Daniels’ The Butler

A couple weeks, one of my aces out here threw out this analogy, which I’m sure he stole from someone else, and now (since I know alot of you are not in Hollywood) I’m stealing this analogy to start this review.  If 12 Years a Slave gave you the ‘origins’ of the black experience in America, and Fruitvale […]

Captain Phillips

  Captain Phillips is based on the true story of a merchant marine (Tom Hanks I think accurately referred to them as ‘the truckers of the sea’) who sees his ship hijacked by Somali pirates, then kidnapped and held for ransom by those same pirates before finally being rescued by the U.S. Navy.  Tom Hanks stars […]

Fruitvale Station

  Finally got to see Fruitvale Station tonight.  Taking one last deep breath before I start this one. The film is based on the real life story of Oscar Grant, who a few years back was killed at the BART station in San Francisco this film is named after.  As directed by Ryan Coogler, we follow Oscar […]

Dallas Buyers Club

Dallas Buyers Club is based on the true story of Ron Woodruff, a purebred blue collar Texan who contracts the HIV virus in the mid 80s.  Fighting against our own notions about what caused the disease (this was pre-Magic) and more importantly, the FDA and the pharmaceutical industry who controlled which drugs were legal in this […]

’12 Years a Slave’

  Where to begin with this one… All public record but a little of my own background again: both sides of my family are from rural Louisiana.  Some of my most vivid childhood memories are of my father taking me to visit my great-grandmother and his aunt, and their small (I mean, three room small) […]

Song of the Day – ‘Scenario’

  I finally caught the Bo Jackson 30 for 30 last night on Instant Netflix.  I obviously have a terrible bias here as someone who was in Royals Stadium on some of those nights, but I have to say that one goes on the list of ‘favorites’ for me.  I thought it captured Bo’s spirit […]

Venus Vs.

  Just finished the premiere of the new ESPN 30 for 30 doc, ‘Venus Vs.’, directed by Ava DuVernay.  It’s a good doc; all of this happened in our lifetimes, but I know I’m not the only one who kind of takes for granted now how much ground Venus broke within our generation. The main […]

‘Man of Steel’

  I’m one voice of many at this point so I’ll just drop a few non spoiler points about what I liked and didn’t like about the Superman reboot… No connection to any of the previous versions.  Acted like this was a brand new story.  Good call. Extraordinarily biased but seeing Clark sport Jayhawk and […]

Summer Movie I’m Most Hyped For…

  Hope everyone had a nice holiday.  I’m still on my ‘Eight Days a Week’ kick; probably my life for the forseeable future, so I’ve come to accept it. I did however, find a couple hours to see what my people on Twitter renamed ‘Star Trek Into Darkness starring the Prince of Gotham.’  As someone […]