By Laurie Coker Rating: A Girl power is at the forefront of many movies this summer, but often the effort to promote female strength and equality feels forced and faked. In 1989, Tracy Edwards, a twenty-four-year-old boat cook, put together the first-ever, all-female crew to sail in the Whitbread Round the World Race. Documentarian Alex… Continue reading Review: MAIDEN
Author: Laurie Coker
Review – On DVD & Streaming September 9th: YESTERDAY
By Laurie Coker Rating: B+ Yesterday were the Beatles and today, only a glimmer remains – or no memory of them all. Director Danny Boyle takes his viewers on an enchanted journey in this twist on the music of the Fab Four. Written by Richard Curtis, Yesterday offers a modern mix of Beatles music in a sentimental and… Continue reading Review – On DVD & Streaming September 9th: YESTERDAY
Review – Now Available on Amazon Prime: GAGS the CLOWN
By Laurie Coker Rating: F- Gag! Everything in Gags the Clown is rotten. Taking the hand-held camera production approach does nothing to bring terror or entertainment to this half-baked, horror flick, now available for rent or purchase on Amazon Prime. Director and co-writer, with John Pata, Adam Krause fails miserably at the found-footage genre, but not as… Continue reading Review – Now Available on Amazon Prime: GAGS the CLOWN
Review: THE ART OF RACING IN THE RAIN
By Laurie Coker Rating B- Garth Stein’s transparent, yet touching tale and Kevin Costner’s gravelly voiceover of the canine lead in The Art of Racing in the Rain offer a breath of fresh air in a season fraught with dismal dramas and over-blown action thrillers. Regardless of the formulaic story ploys, director Simon Curtis manages to rise… Continue reading Review: THE ART OF RACING IN THE RAIN
Review: EDIE
By Laurie Coker Rating: B People who complete amazing feats of strength, determination, and perseverance fill the world. However, we rarely hear about octogenarians who climb mountains. Director Simon Hunter and screenwriter Elizabeth O’Halloran weave a beautiful tale of life after death – death of a husband that is. Sheila Hancock stars as Edie, a… Continue reading Review: EDIE
Review: THE ANGEL HAS FALLEN
The angel HAS fallen. The Angel has Fallen is a sequel that should have fallen before it was in the can. Starring Gerard Butler, Morgan Freeman, and Jada Picket Smith, The Angel has Fallen relies too heavily on action and chase sequences and fails to deliver a story of any merit, not that one is… Continue reading Review: THE ANGEL HAS FALLEN
Review: WHERE’D YOU GO, BERNADETTE?
By Laurie CokerRating: C+/B- Cate Blanchett stars as Bernadette Fox in Richard Linklater’s latest foray in film, Where’d you go, Bernadette? Far removed from the high school hallways of Dazed and Confused, Linklater takes on the complex psyche of a woman, whose genius for design and architecture pushes hers close to the edge of crazy… Continue reading Review: WHERE’D YOU GO, BERNADETTE?
Review: DORA AND THE LOST CITY OF GOLD
By Laurie CokerRating: C+ “We are explorers, not treasure hunters,” Dora’s professor parents tell her. Dora and the Lost City of Gold, director Jason Bobin writers Nicholas Stoller, Matthew Robinson clearly appreciate the highly popular Nickelodeon animated series Dora the Explorer, seriously. Their adaptation, however, reaches for a far wider audience. Actress Isabel Moner gives… Continue reading Review: DORA AND THE LOST CITY OF GOLD
Review: CRAWL
By Laurie CokerRating: C Recently, the Birding Center in South Padre Island, Texas brought alligators to the Island. Big Padre, a fourteen-foot-long monster, and other smaller gators now call South Padre home. Feasting on a diet of chickens, Big Padre draws in the tourists and gives life to a deadly predator. Even from behind the… Continue reading Review: CRAWL
Review: SWORD OF TRUST
By Laurie CokerRating: B- Almost everyone would love to find a family treasure in the attic, a trinket, document or collection worth a pretty penny. Another possibility, albeit rare, are the hopes of unearthing some relic that upturns history as we know it. Such is the case, or so it seems with a Civil War… Continue reading Review: SWORD OF TRUST