Curt Holman

image-1

Even if you’ve never heard the name Oliver Hirschbiegel, there’s a strong chance you’ve seen his work. The German filmmaker directed Downfall, the superb 2004 drama about the Third Reich's final days. Last year, a clip of Bruno Ganz’s Hitler chewing out his underlings became a YouTube hit when an online prankster rewrote the subtitles so the scene depicted...

image-1

I learned more from Chris Rock's documentary Good Hair than I did from all the other films and plays I’ve seen about African-American beauty parlors and barbershops put together. As a white guy with straight hair (and seemingly less of it every day), subjects like weaves and relaxers tend to be terra incognita. Even black audiences might view African-American hairstyle issues...

image-1

Though only 17 years old, Clareece “Precious” Jones (Gabourey Sidibe) suffers enough misfortunes for several Greek tragedies remounted in 1987 Harlem. Precious’ title character endures obesity, illiteracy, a baby with Down syndrome and a sociopathically hostile, selfish mother (Mo’Nique) — and those are just the preliminaries. When Precious gets warmed up,...

image-1

It’s difficult to imagine that Amelia would exist if Hilary Swank didn't already have two Best Actress Oscars and a striking resemblance to the toothy, tomboyish Amelia Earhart. Director Mira Nair offers a sleek but perfunctory biopic of the famed aviatrix that seems driven more by an ambition for Academy Awards than any real interest in Earhart’s accomplishments....

image-1

The establishment seems more firmly established in England than anywhere else. Two terrific new British films depict prodigiously intelligent characters who challenge entrenched English institutions and nearly outsmart themselves along the way. The protagonists of the soccer movie The Damned United and the coming-of-age romance An Education fit in the rebellious, angry young man...

image-1

The prologue to the warm-n-fuzzy sports story The Blind Side plays so well, it’s like seeing a team return an opening kickoff to score a touchdown. A Southern-accented Sandra Bullock narrates an insider’s perspective on the five fateful seconds that cost the Washington Redskins’ Joe Theismann his career. Michael Lewis’ book The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game...

image-1

The Men Who Stare at Goats begins with a wonderful disclaimer: “More of this is true than you would believe.” Most films use phrases like “Based on a true story” or “Inspired by actual events” as a fig leaf for outrageous liberties with little connection to reality. The real incidents behind The Men Who Stare at Goats indeed seem stranger than fiction,...

image-1Zombies have become so popular that the corridors of our pop culture resound with ravenous moans for “Braaaiinns!” White Zombie, screening Saturday at the Plaza Theatre’s Silver Scream Spook Show, offers a kitschy reminder that the living dead weren’t always the decomposing cannibals of George Romero.

Follow the trail of body parts back a few decades, and...

image-1

In the documentary Crude, Brothers Keeper director Joe Berlinger presents a courtroom drama that never takes place in a courtroom. The grim but engrossing film recounts the tactics and history of a civil lawsuit filed by thousands of native Ecuadoreans who allege that Texaco (now Chevron) polluted vast areas of the rain forest with oil, leading to contaminated drinking water and...

image-1

Medical narratives often depict ordinary people who turn to alternative healing methods when traditional Western health care fails. Seldom can you find families that go to the lengths of Rupert Isaacson and Kristen Neff, who traveled from Austin, Texas, to the steppes of Mongolia with the hopes of improving their son Rowan’s autistic condition.

Narrating the documentary...