“I Mean…What?!?” – Abe Gurko

It is the morning after having seen The Adopted, (Les adoptés), a wonderful film by French actress and pop singer Mélanie Laurent. I cannot stop thinking about it. The Adopted is not only Mélanie’s directorial debut, but this stunning actress also wrote the piece and stars in it. Triple threat much? Rather, quadruple, let’s not forget the singing thing. On the way to the screening, I thought, “The Adopted, must be a documentary about adopting kids from Africa, some kind of actress vanity project or perhaps something personal along the lines of Angelina Jolie’s In the Land of Blood and… Read More »

Remember when the Oscars meant something? Families would gather round their one television set, snacks piled high. It was the signature event of the movie industry, when actors still held a mystique because they were so inaccessible. Their lifestyles were imagined rather than paraded for the media, only few would speak out in support of injustices or charitable causes and we were kept at arms length from knowing too much what went on behind closed doors. Boy has that all changed. Now, we know so much about everyone that is nominated for each award, that by the time the Oscar… Read More »

What is the deal with nominating ten films for Best Movie for an Academy Award? They needed to add those extra five like I am going to the moon. Sure, they talked on and on about the Golden Age of Hollywood and that they had ten nominees. Yoo hoo, that was when Hollywood was churning out hundreds of movies a month. Of course there were ten nominees. Let’s not compare apples to oranges here. Just because Hollywood is having a blockbuster year, does not make the equivalent of the films comparable to the days of yore. Shall we compare notes?… Read More »