Movie Review: "Upstairs Inferno"

With a deep pool of interview subjects, and a strong sense of right and wrong, Upstairs Inferno does more in 90 minutes to elicit empathy for a community of people than the city of New Orleans did in 40 years. It's astonishing, quite frankly, the level of ignorance and vitriol that came from city and church officials in the wake of the worst gay mass murder in U.S. history. In NOLA, of all places. On the edge of the French Quarter. Amazing how lifestyles are "accepted" until they have to be publicly "acknowledged". Replace lifestyles with humans in that sentence - that's an additional tragedy.

Movie Review: "The Wolfpack"

It's been argued often that the Batman depicted in the Christopher Nolan films isn't, himself, deserving of much admiration. A wealthy playboy who beats on people of unfortunate circumstance doesn't sit well with those who dwell. Maintaining the very status quo his fans think he's against. This problem has been addressed in other comic book movies like Dredd (and beautifully so), but not so much in The Dark Knight Trilogy. This most recent incarnation of Batman wasn't really hung up on flaws in his character, but rather larger scale moral questions of right and wrong, answers to which leaned toward ambiguous and conservative.

What I'm getting at is, when you think about it, this version of the Caped Crusader isn't quite as inspirational as we like to think or would want. He's a bit more complicated and "epic" than that. But, for a group of siblings stuck in a run down New York housing project... his movie will do. And, for one of them, will undo.

Then & Now 1: Mental Diagnosis Cinema

In attempting to write something for Huffington Post submission, I came up with an idea for a blog series. With "Then & Now", I'll look at two movies, one from my childhood and one recently released, loosely or tightly connected, that have affected me for better or worse. 

Thoughts? Suggestions? Please leave a comment.