Dark Skies

Runtime:  1 hour, 35 minutesRating: PG-13Directors:  Scott Stewart Quick Impressions:For the past couple of months, whenever a Dark Skies trailer has come on during movie theater previews, I’ve squinched my eyes shut and kept them closed through its duration.  I mean, except the first time, obviously.  I stopped looking because …

Side Effects

Runtime:  1 hr, 45 minutes Rating: R Directors:  Steven Soderbergh Quick Impressions: The parasomnias fascinate me. My sister sleepwalks.  Growing up, we shared a bathroom, so her sleepwalking made getting ready in the morning extra exciting.  In times of high stress, she would regularly sleepwalk into the bathroom, unscrew the …

Warm Bodies

Runtime:  1 hour, 38 minutes Rating: PG-13 Directors:  Jonathan Levine Quick Impressions: I’ve never liked zombies.  Nobody with a brain should date one.  They’ll fall apart on you! Okay that was zombie humor.  But seriously, zombies do nothing for me.  Vampires are seductive.  Werewolves are tormented.  Ghosts are haunted. Zombies …

Amour

Runtime:  2 hours, 7 minutesRating:  PG-13  Director:  Michael Haneke Quick Impressions: All day long, the Hopkins poem “Spring and Fall: To a Young Child” has been running through my mind (probably because I took a long walk with my daughter who kept pointing out that the trees and stiff reeds …

Zero Dark Thirty

Runtime:  2 hours, 37 minutes Rating:  R Director: Kathryn Bigelow Quick Impressions: I’ve got to say, sitting in a darkened movie theater watching CIA operatives interrogate terrorists while all around me my fellow Americans munch popcorn and slurp drinks is a pretty surreal experience.  Even putting aside what Zero Dark Thirty is trying to …

The Impossible

Runtime:  1 hour, 43 minutes Rating:  PG-13 Director: Juan Antonio Bayona Quick Impressions: The tsunami of December 26, 2004, made a profound impression on me. I always associate it with the death of my grandmother.  Even though Grandma died at home in bed months earlier, the two events got mixed …

Les Misérables

Runtime:  2 hours, 38 minutes Rating:  PG-13 Director: Tom Hooper Quick Impressions: I first saw the musical Les Misérables on the stage in London in the summer of 2000.  To be honest, it was a slightly disappointing and, at times, bewildering experience.  The show seemed very rushed (as if they were trying …

Django Unchained

Runtime:  2 hours, 21 minutes Rating:  R Director: Quentin Tarantino Quick Impressions: We saw this movie in a packed house (at 9:20 pm) with an exceptionally responsive audience, and I was very excited about the whole thing.  I love that Quentin Tarantino these days seems to have the freedom to …

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