The beginning of the psychological thriller Martha Marcy May Marlene is compelling. Quiet serene scenes of an East Coast woodsy town speak volumes that something is not right in what viewers are about to discover. Any chills on the arms are soon dead on as we’re brought into the world of Martha (Elizabeth Olsen) as she plans a getaway from the cult where she’s been a captive. Elizabeth Olsen gives a wonderful performance here, but I had several probems with this film, especailly the nonending. If the audience isn’t allowed to write the beginning of a movie, why should we have to write the end? Read more>>

My Reincarnation is an insider look at Buddhist genealogy from the perspective of filmmaker Jennifer Fox, who has followed Tibetan spiritual master Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche for twenty years, both personally and on film. Read more>>

Masterfully embodied by Leonardo DiCaprio, J. Edgar Hoover was the most powerful man in America as iconic, if paranoiac head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for nearly 50 years. Serving eight Presidents through three wars, he used evidence gained from surveillance to try to blackmail Roosevelt, Nixon, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, while shrewdly manipulating the media to support his ruthless pursuit of Communists and gangsters. Read more

Vulnerability. Exposure. Sensuality. These are key subjects under considerstion as Charlotte Rampling, sublimely wise at age 55, comments on her approach to performance, career arc and personal evolution, while looking into filmmaker Angelina Maccarone’s camera for The Look, an insightful and intimate documentary profile of the revered actress. Read more>>

Imaginative, inventive and challenging, this almost totally silent film fantasy about the advent of talking pictures (1927-1931) was shot in Hollywood in black-and-white by a French crew headed by writer/director Michel Hazanavicius. Read more

Filmmaker Gemma Atwal follows Budhia Singh, a four-year-old boy in India, as he become a well- known marathon runner and local hero. Or is he really the victim of exploitation? Read more>>

Despite its incessantly percussive music, this disappointing Cold War espionage thriller dilutes all tension and suspense far too early in the hunt for a Soviet-era assassin who has resurfaced to slit the throat of a United States Senator. That premeditated murder, utilizing a watch and a wire, cues the CIA that the hit squad, known as ‘The Cassius 7,’ has resurfaced, or at least the notoriously shadowy Russian mastermind who led them. The Cassius 7 name came from the number of Roman senators who assassinated Caesar. Read more

The other F word is “Father” or “Fatherhood.” Now, what were you thinking? Filmmaker Andrea Blaugrund’s high energy documentary is chronicles the changes that professional — famous, even — punk rock musicians go through when that F word makes its way into their lives. Read more>>

The mere idea that the work accredited to William Shakespeare is not really his own writing seems almost scandalous. But could it be true? That’s the premise behind Director Roland Emmerich’s Anonymous, which due to too many flashbacks in John Orloff’s screenplay is confusing. However, the concept is intriguing and the great production value held my interest all the way through. Read more

Who wrote Shakespeare’s plays? Could it have been an ordinary man like William, an itinerant actor whom some say was illiterate? Or was it a nobleman with Royal connections, like Sir Francis Bacon, poet/playwright Christopher Marlow, William Stanley, the 6th Earl of Derby, or, as this story postulates, Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. Over the years, controversy about who the Bard of Stratford-on-Avon really was has intrigued literati, including Charles Dickens, Henry James, Mark Twain, Sigmund Freud, even Helen Keller. Read more