Raise Your Voice is Hilary Duff’s new film about a teen girl, Terri,  whose brother (Jason Ritter) is killed the night of his high school graduation. She bought him two concert tickets for a graduation gift, but at the family party that day, her brother sasses his dad (David Kieth) and is grounded.  Terri convinces him that they should sneak out; on the way home, a drunk driver kills him and puts Terri in the hospital.. The back story to... Read more

What a lovely surprise of a film. Was high school really so much like hell? Napoleon hangs in there, and as he muddles his way through life with a repressed older brother and a perpetually adolescent uncle (while grandma is away), exudes the beauty of friendship in a performance that is its own reward – and he doesn’t even seem to notice. It was so refreshing to see such unselfish characters in this small, odd little movie. It’s funny. I felt like nothing... Read more

Garden State is a gritty/lovely surprise of a film written, directed by and starring Zach Braff (Scrubbs). I should call this series of entries to my movie blog “the vacations series” since I went to see it with my sister last weekend, too. We were to Borders first and when we were checking out (bought a copy of Vanity Fair) we asked the young sales assistant where the theater was in the mall and he asked what we were going to... Read more

This relatively short drama about a married couple who are abandoned while on a diving trip in the Caribbean is quietly terrifying. The pre-release hype seemed to make it a real-life JAWS; but JAWS was a summer blockbuster about fear based on a novel; OPEN WATER is a low-budget cinematic look at relationships, blame and forgiveness, death and dying, and fear engendered by real life. The film asks what we might do in the same situation: the couple was stranded because... Read more

I was in Tulsa last week to speak at a conference of religious educators and a couple of women came up to me and asked if I had seen this film, starring Jennifer Garner and released earlier this year. I had to admit I had not, although Jennifer Garner is one of my favorite new stars (ALIAS is my guilty pleasure, as I think I have mentioned before.) These two ladies said: the main character is not a nice person, and... Read more

The Manchuran Candidate is a chilling picture of the extremes to which globalization can reach when politics and economics become one. Democracy becomes an ideal of the past and the bottom line, made up of the lust for money and power, rules the world. I thought this remake an admirable updating from fear of the Red Menace to fear of the global corporation. Meryl Streep is an interesting evil mother figure; Denzel Washington plays the role that Frank Sinatra made... Read more

I grew up in San Diego in the 1960’s and surfer culture was pervasive. It was just so cool, even if you never stood on a board (I managed to lay on one in Mission Bay once). It was always an endless summer, even for non-surfers. Because I didn’t get to see Step into Liquid last year, I wanted to make sure I saw Riding Giants. The movie is a documentary that gives the history of US surfing up to... Read more

Remember Hugh Grant’s rather hygeine-challenged house-mate in Notting Hill, played so effectively by Rhys Ifans? Let me tell you, he cleans up very nicely in the quirky Australian comedy, Danny Deckchair. Danny is a brick-layer who lives in Sydney with his girl friend Trudy,  real estate agent. He has his holiday all planned: a camping trip up north. Trudy makes a work appointment she cannot break (and doesn’t really want to) and lies to Danny about why they can’t go... Read more

The Corporation is a 2 1/2 hour highly structured documentary directed by Mark Achbar, who produced and directed the Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media in 1992. For anyone who is interested in the rise of “The Corporation” as a governing institution in the United States, Canada and the world, this is a movie to see. It felt like 2 1/2 hours of a college class on the coming and going and status of democracy, civics, economics, history, health,... Read more

Maria Full of Grace was truly a difficult film to experience because it is visceral to the core. Maria is a 17 year old girl who lives in a village outside of Bogota, Colombia. She works on a flower plantation, and de-thorns long stem roses for export. She quits when her boss refuses to let her take bathroom breaks; she has just discivered she is pregnant. Maria helps support a house full of women: her grandmother, unmarried single-mom sister, Diana, her nephew... Read more