Sorted by date Results 26 - 49 of 49
David Gulpilil has been around Hollywood movies for a long time. He's the actor most often called when productions need an Australian aborigine (really, it's kind of depressing how often on his IMDB page he's just credited as "Aborigine"), and you've probably seen him in movies like "Crocodile Dundee," "Rabbit-Proof Fence," "Australia," or "Walkabout." He has one of those faces you'll recognize, even if you don't recognize his name. It's easy to see why he keeps getting cast;...
The Revenant" is set in what is now North Dakota/Montana in the 1820s. (The film fudges a little on its location as it was shot in British Columbia, which has the Rockies versus North Dakota's mountain-less terrain). It's a time period and location seldom explored in movies-a Western in some senses, and definitely not in others. A band of fur trappers, led by Domnhall Gleeson, find themselves in conflict with the Indigenous people of that land (called by their nickname the "Re...
As "Big Game" opens, a 13-year-old boy must go hunting on his own, armed with only a bow and arrow, as part of a coming-of-age ceremony. Whatever he brings back-rabbit, deer, bear-marks him for life: this is the kind of man he is. Now that's pressure. One of the fun things about "Big Game" is that it starts with this ceremony, somewhere in the ice and snow of Scandinavia. And while it clearly takes place in present day, I would guess that you could take the first twenty pages...
Between "Everest," and the "The Martian," the movie-plex this fall seems to be full of films about places where the tiniest mistake can result in almost certain death. If Hollywood is trying to convince me to never leave my couch again, they're doing a pretty solid job. The two films also give us an opportunity to meditate on the human spirit, and our place in the vast universe where we live. "The Martian" is set in an apparently not-that-distant future, where everything is...
What's my favorite thing about Pixar's excellent new film, "Inside Out?" All the way home, my six-year-old was using the basic concept to talk about things that have been going on lately with her own emotions. A few days later, she was building her own personality islands with Legos, and telling me about the core memories that powered each island. Because we watched this movie together, I know my daughter better. I understand better what is happening inside her head. That's...
Mad Max is a two-and-a-half hour post-apocalyptic car chase through the desert, with very little dialogue or plot. It's an adrenaline rush, an unapologetic popcorn movie. But that doesn't mean it's a brainless or stupid movie. Tom Hardy plays Max, because Mel Gibson has gotten too old and crazy to do so. But he's mostly a side character, along for the ride, with Charlize Theron in the driver's seat. She's a road warrior, pilot/driver of a War Machine (weaponized semi-truck in...
The good people who made Kingsman: The Secret Service feel, in no uncertain terms, that spy movies have gotten all-too-serious. You should know that going in; this movie is silly on purpose. Its object is to be outrageous, it's determined to be daffy, it resolves to be ridiculous. The violence is over the top and cartoonish, which is good, because there is more than enough of it. But cringing every time a character gets his arm broken in Kingsman is like crying every time...
Based on the 1974 novel by James Welch, "Winter in the Blood" is a dreamy, often brutally dark film about an alcoholic on the Blackfeet reservation in Montana. Chaske Spencer plays Virgil First Raise, who lives his life in an alternating state of drunken stupor and hung-over bleariness. There's not much that you could call a plot here. First Raise wakes up in a ditch as the film opens, discovers his wife has left him, heading into town with his rifle and his electric razor,...
"You don't always agree with me, and I don't always agree with you, and yet here we are... still talking." The little boy who plays God (or God's messenger) in Exodus: Gods and Kings says this to Moses near the end of the movie, as Moses carves out the Ten Commandments with hammer and chisel (no finger of God here). And that line may go the furthest to express Ridley Scott's approach to God and spirituality throughout the movie. This is a film filled with profound...
This is the toast members of a tank crew all offer to each other at the end of a particularly intense battle sequence in the new World War II drama Fury. They're being sarcastic and/or ironic-all of them would rather be somewhere, anywhere else-but you get the sense that, even in the midst of the joke, they're also speaking the truth. The adrenaline rush of a kill-or-be-killed situation is addictive, and there's nothing like putting everything on the line for a cause that you...
Two pretty decent films about Native Americans (and featuring Native American actors) have recently been released on DVD. "The Road to Paloma" stars Jason Momoa, who also directed the film. Momoa, who is of Hawaiian, Pawnee, German and Irish descent, is probably best known for playing the fierce Khal Drogo in HBO's series "Game of Thrones." He's also the star of SundanceTV's series "The Red Road," which is about Ramapouh Mountain Indians in New Jersey. In fact, according to...
A Film Review by Willie Krischke Okay, I know what you're thinking. Do we really need another prequel? Another origin story? Is it that important to know what all our heroes looked like when they were still in diapers, and to witness the tragic events that turned good guys into bad guys? Wolverine, Magneto, Darth Vader, the Wicked Witch... who's next? Donald Rumsfield? But just because a tune is familiar doesn't mean the right artist can't totally kill it (In a good way). And...
We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. –John 1:14 The last part of that verse both inspires and haunts me: full of grace and truth. So often I err on one side or the other, either extending grace but ignoring the truth, which makes me an enabler, both of my own sin and that of my friends. Or I am full of truth but lacking in grace, coming down hard like a hammer, squashing those I am trying to challenge a...
The cinematic offerings that highlight Native American or Indigenous issues or feature promising Native American or Indigenous actors have been pretty thin lately, but I thought I'd take this issue of Indian Life to let you know about two films I've seen recently that fall into those categories. The Activist is a film set on (or near) the Lakota Sioux Pine Ridge Reservation during the Wounded Knee occupation in 1973. Cyril Moran, a Frenchman, directs it and the film has...
Now that we're two-thirds of the way through it, The Hobbit trilogy is forming up to be Middle Earth-lite. It's an entertaining series of movies for any and all who thought Lord of the Rings was far too serious and grim. Though it occasionally takes stabs at being "epic," these Hobbit movies are far more interested in just having fun in an imaginary world. With that in mind, I'm going to run through The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug with an eye for its goofiness and fun-loving...
Ender's Game is a movie about war and children. Set in the distant future, humanity has barely survived an attack by a vastly superior alien enemy, almost entirely due to luck and good timing. The aliens look and act like giant bugs, and their faces fill the nightmares of Earth's children every night. And maybe not just the children. The thought of a second bug invasion scares the pants off of Earth's leaders so they are doing everything imaginable to make sure that doesn't ha...
It seems like all Native America wanted to talk about this summer was “The Lone Ranger” and whether it honored or offended Native Americans. I’ve read articles from Native people on both sides, so I’ll let my words be few on this topic. Frankly, I expected it to be worse. It makes some honest, if clumsy and possibly misguided, attempts to honor Native peoples. Its greatest sin is that it relegates Native Americans to the past. Tonto appears to be the last living Indian,...
Star Trek: Into Darkness is a hoot. It’s fun and fast-paced, hurtling from one side of the galaxy to the other and then back again. It’s both accessible for newcomers to the “Star Trek” mythology and rewarding for fans who know all the in-jokes. It brings back the best villain of the old “Star Trek” series and movies (though I’m not supposed to tell you that). Director J.J. Abrams is perhaps the best handler of big, complicated set pieces this side of Christopher Nolan. “Into...
As anybody who knows anything already knows, 42 is the answer to the question of Life, the Universe and Everything. It also happens to be the number Jackie Robinson, the first African American to play Major League baseball, wore on his Brooklyn Dodgers uniform. Coincidence? I think not. I imagine everyone knows a little bit about Jackie Robinson, who broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball in 1947. His number is the only one retired by every team in baseball, and on...
“Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder”, but “excitement is in the mouth of the taster”. I think the beauty of a fresh snowfall is wondrous to behold yet you cannot eat it. Well, that’s not true, you could pour fresh maple syrup over it, but that’s another story. Here we are coming into Mozokas, the moose-hunting moon of March and Zogalikas, the maple sugar-making moon of April. Lovely as it can be, I think we have all grown weary of winter for this year. And, I believe w...
Steven Spielberg’s film Lincoln is deceptively titled; this isn’t a biopic in the traditional sense of the form. A better title would be “The 13th Amendment,” but it’s pretty easy to see why Spielberg and company didn’t go with that. Lincoln plays like a 19th century version of The West Wing. It focuses on a few weeks in Lincoln’s White House, and the struggles, contriving, deal making, scheming, and pleading it took to get an abolishment of slavery into the Constitution....
If you read this column regularly, you know that I am not a fan of comparing books to movies. They are two very different mediums with different strengths that aren’t going to translate from one to the other. I read The Hobbit probably 20 years ago, so my memory of it is pretty fuzzy. This seemed to be like an ideal way to go see the movie—I still remember what happens, mostly, but I wouldn’t spend the whole movie thinking, “This isn’t how it happens in the book! Oh no! They...
If you’ve been following the story of the Iroquois Nationals lacrosse team (and if you haven’t, you really should start) you know it’s the kind of thing that would make a great sports movie. Sadly, Crooked Arrows isn’t that movie. True, it’s about the triumph of an underdog Native American lacrosse team, but the parallels end there. The Arrows are a high school team, not the Nationals. And more importantly, Crooked Arrows is a long ways from a great sports movie. The film...
In an odd aligning of the cinematic planets, two quite good movies set amongst the Inupiats of Barrow, Alaska have become available on DVD within the last few weeks. Barrow is the northernmost city in the United States, and previously was the setting of the bloody awful vampire movie 30 Days of Night. Both of these movies are much better than that one. The shiny big one with the hollow insides is Big Miracle. Drew Barrymore and John Krasinski lead a cast full of recognizable...
