Knowing better than to dwell on its title character’s early life in bondage, Lawmen: Bass Reeves grants him his freedom early on and establishes him as a man of inherent dignity and complex emotion. Even in the first two episodes watched for this review, Reeves (thanks to a stellar performance by David Oyelowo) is defined […]

Though it paints in overly broad strokes and takes a while to get going, this tale of broken people finding each other eventually reaches an irresistibly feel-good conclusion. Like many good sports movies, Seabiscuit isn’t really dependent on the final outcome of a matchup between underdog and high-profile contender. What becomes important, then, is the […]

The 2008 film Doubt offers a haunting peek into the crisis of pedophilia within the Catholic church. Featuring an all-star cast of Amy Adams,  Philip Seymour Hoffman, Meryl Streep and Viola Davis, it is more than just a fictional tale. With performances that will make you question your intuition and cast a shadow of doubt […]

From Edward Zwick (Blood Diamond), Defiance is the unheard and untold true story of Polish Jewish brothers who defied all odds during World War II and built a community in the woods of Belarus to escape Hitler’s persecution and save around a thousand civilians from certain death. Interestingly, the film tries to avoid the dramatization of characters and […]

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