E. Nielson

THE HATEFUL EIGHT (2015) - This film directed and written by Quentin Tarantino is a nearly three hour glorification of the worst that humanity has to offer with so much blood having been spilled by the time the third hour rolls along and with virtually all of the characters either dead or on the verge of dying. In many ways this film played more like a stage play with much of the first hour being played in the stage coach with what started off as some clever banter but quickl

This excellent film directed and written by Peter Landesman features an excellent performance from Will Smith which will be certainly not be forgotten at the Academy Award nominations and will be looked on as a career high point. This is a biographical sports medical drama based on a GQ article Game Brain by Jeanne Marie Laskas and details the efforts of a forensic pathologist named Dr. Bennet Omalu to explain why so many professional football players were suffering brain dam

David O. Russell has directed and written one of the finest films of the year, while giving Jennifer Lawrence the best role of her young career. This is a semi-autobiographical dramatic film with some comedic overtones loosely based on the life of Joy Mangano, an entrepreneur who created her own business empire. Joy was a divorced mother of three young children when in the early 1990s she invented the Miracle Mop and became an overnight success, creating patents on about anot

This film directed by Ericson Core and written by Kurt Wimmer is a remake of the 1991 film of the same name that starred Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves. The high price of producing films has gotten seemingly out of control causing many studios to try and hedge their bets with a series of remakes and sequels to try and insure a healthy profit margin. What it means for audiences is a feeling of been there and done that which in turn leads to a creative type of wasteland. Thou

Alejandro G. Inarritu’s film which he co-wrote with Mark L. Smith was inspired by the experiences of frontiersman and fur trapper Hugh Glass and based in part on the book THE REVENANT: A Novel of Revenge by Michael Punke. An extraordinary telling of life on the frontier with beautiful performances by Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Domhnall Gleeson, Will Poulter and Forrest Goodluck among many others. I was awestruck by the cinematography of Emmanuel Lubezki and how immersive

This comedy/drama was directed by Adam McKay who co-wrote the script with Charles Randolph which in turn is based on the book of the same name by Michael Lewis. This film details the mortgage crisis of 2007-2010 brought on by the build-up of the housing market and the ensuing credit bubble. A group of brokers were able to figure out what was going on and devised a plan to bet against the economy and thus make a fortune when the markets crashed. A film that tries to be a high

This is a truly awful film that was directed by Jason Moore from a screenplay by Paula Pell and stars Tina Fey and Amy Poehler as a pair of sisters who never truly ever grew up, insisting on living life as if they were still thirteen years old. To say this is even an insulting jab at thirteen year old girls, many of whom I’ve known to be mature far beyond their years. This script violates the basic concept of good story telling in that there is such a weak plot suffused with

J.J. Abrams’ film based on a screenplay he co-wrote with Lawrence Kasdan which was based on an initial script by Michael Arndt. The action is based about 30 years after RETURN OF THE JEDI and seeks to continue this most profitable franchise and for the most part succeeds in it’s endeavors. Filmed in locations as varied as Abu Dhabi, Iceland, and Ireland with interiors being filmed at Pinewood Studios in England, this production certainly did not spare any expense in trying to

Ron Howard’s film which is based on Nathaniel Philbrick’s non-fiction book of the same name, purports to tell the story of the Essex, an American whaling ship that was sunk in 1820, and provided the source material for Herman Melville’s MOBY DICK. Very well executed, beautifully photographed and well acted by Chris Hemsworth, Benjamin Walker, Cillian Murphy, Tom Holland, Ben Whishaw and Brendan Gleeson, is a thrilling film to behold. Though at first reluctant to tell the tale

William Riead’s film based on the life of Mother Theresa is both a ponderous and at times a laborious work of art that had me making comparisons to Akira Kurosawa’s monumental film IKIRU thought by many film critics to be one of the finest films ever made. I do not believe this film as it exists in it’s final form would have been made by a major studio without major changes to it’s overall structure. However this may very well be the film’s resoundingly high mark in that y