‘Great Debaters’ never seems remotely real
The Great Debaters has the ingredients for a great motion picture: starched collars, a sweaty speakeasy, a teacher who will become a serious poet, rousing rhetoric, dog-eared Bibles, ferocious battles of wits. But there are two influences at work on this story, weighing it down like damp laundry on a [...]

Ridley Scott and cast coast along in American Gangster

A multitude of cinematic sins can be laid at Sir Ridley Scott’s feet, ranging from his creation of the MTV blue-light flash style of filmmaking, to how his early success in commercials paved the way for the ascent of the Great Satan Michael Bay, or even that [...]