ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT > MOVIE REVIEW
By R. Kurt Osenlund
Most of the buzz surrounding Sundance standout “The Runaways,” a behind-the-music movie about the formative years of the first all-girl rock band to make it big, has been focused on “It Girl” Kristen Stewart, who dyed her hair black, donned a lot of leather and scuffed up her trademark aloofness to portray a young Joan Jett. The Stewart-as-star publicity is a bait and switch: The film’s white-hot nucleus is in fact Stewart’s less bankable but more dynamic “New Moon” co-star Dakota Fanning, who hits a cinematic growth spurt as Runaways lead singer Cherie Currie and owns this 1970s-set jam session from top to bell-bottom.
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT > MOVIE REVIEW
By R. Kurt Osenlund
Valid cases surely could be made for the rise of Sandra Bullock as the Best Actress front-runner, the impending milestone of Kathryn Bigelow becoming the first female to win Best Director and Lee Daniels being only the second black filmmaker ever nominated for a directing Oscar, but the biggest story of the 82nd Annual Academy Awards remains the one announced by the Academy’s Board of Governors last June: 10 Best Picture nominees.
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT > MOVIE REVIEW
By Ross Burlingame
“Brooklyn’s Finest” has a lot to say and, while it attempts to tell it all in a gritty and realistic way, there are far too many moments and performances that feel more like Hollywood than Brooklyn.
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT > MOVIE REVIEW
By Ross Burlingame
In “The White Ribbon,” director Michael Haneke focuses on a small Protestant village in Germany during the two years leading up to World War I (July 1913 to August 1914) in order to ponder the origins of the brutal violence that took place in that country over the next three decades.