By ANGELA DAWSON Front Row Features HOLLYWOOD— Judd Apatow celebrates the triumphs and trials of middle age in his newest comedy “This is 40,” starring real-life wife Leslie Mann and go-to funnyman Paul Rudd as a mostly happily married couple coping with grown up issues. (The movie is being promo [...]
By JAMES DAWSON Front Row Features Film Critic Inspired by the true story of family members separated by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed a quarter-million people in a half-dozen countries, “The Impossible” is a moving portrayal of endurance and tenacity born of desperation. [...]
By JAMES DAWSON Front Row Features Film Critic “Les Misérables” is the kind of bloated, cornball and sappy spectacle that makes people say they hate movie musicals. Most of the melodies (by Claude-Michel Shönberg) are unmemorable, most of the lyrics (by Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Nat [...]
By JAMES DAWSON Front Row Features Film Critic Bafflingly chosen as 2012’s best picture by some critics, the adequate but unexceptional “Zero Dark Thirty” is one of three wildly overpraised Oscar frontrunners this year. Like “Argo” and “Silver Linings Playbook, [...]
By ANGELA DAWSON Front Row Features HOLLYWOOD—Kathryn Bigelow is in an elite category. She is the first woman to win an Academy Award for directing a feature film—that film being 2008’s war drama “The Hurt Locker.” (She also picked up a statue for producing that film.) Bigelow reteams with [...]