Keira Knightley

It’s worth an afternoon at the IMAX theater to take in the sights on ‘Everest,’ but don’t expect any new insight into this harrowing tragedy.

The Imitation Game Adapted by Graham Moore, from the book by Andrew Hodges Directed by Morten Tyldum UK | USA, 2014 Secrets are power.  Whether it’s an indecipherable code controlling the fate of millions or one man’s closeted sexuality, secrets can topple the mightiest of empires.  The Imitation Game follows Alan Turing’s race to break …

The mysterious and secretive figure of Alan Turing has undergone something of a political and cultural renaissance in the UK over the past few years. A young mathematic prodigy, Oxford graduate, and cryptographer par excellence, he was ushered into the ultra top secret Bletchley Park programme during the Second World War and tasked with the impossible: to break the German military codes through a captured sequencer which could potentially offer billions of responses to any clandestine communication. Socially incompetent and ruthlessly dedicated, Turing willingly threw himself into the arena of cerebral combat, along the way erecting much of the intellectual and theoretical infrastructure of the modern computing world. But as a closeted homosexual his treatment at the hands of the authorities in the post-war period should cause the great British bulldog to hang its head in shame, with he and his team’s contribution to the continuation of civilisation remaining cloaked for over half acentury due to the Official Secrets Act. Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown would later make an official public apology on behalf of the British government for “the appalling way he was treated,” while the Queen granted him a posthumous pardon on Christmas Eve 2013.

Begin Again Written and directed by John Carney 2013, USA Movies that make you feel good on their own terms are a rare breed.  John Carney’s latest film, Begin Again, doesn’t need to pander or lobotomize itself to entertain you.  It doesn’t need villains twirling their mustache or hysterical spouses throwing plates against the wall …

Begin Again Formerly known as Can a Song Save Your Life?, writer-director John Carney’s latest film marks a return to the New York music scene in an uplifting tale of reinvention and rediscovery. Keira Knightley stars as Greta, an amateur singer-songwriter left heartbroken in the Big Apple after her douchebag musician boyfriend Dave (Adam Levine) …

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit Written by Adam Cozad and David Koepp Directed by Kenneth Branagh USA, 2014 To say that Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit could be worse is both true and damning with the faintest of praise. This reboot of the famous character created by the late Tom Clancy is almost aggressively generic, an uninspired …

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End Directed by Gore Verbinski Written by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio Starring Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Geoffrey Rush, Bill Nighy When I think of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, somehow my mind first jumps to Paul Thomas Anderson. (Bear with me as I give …

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl Directed by Gore Verbinski Written by Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Stuart Beattie, and Jay Wolpert Starring Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Geoffrey Rush Captain Jack Sparrow is the worst thing that ever happened to Johnny Depp’s career. The prevailing wisdom is that the constantly …

For better or worse, films don’t exist in a vacuum. If literature derives from itself, and, according to Marshall McLuhan, the content in any new medium is always the same as in the old, then films don’t exactly have a wealth of opportunities to be original. You can always compare a film to one that …

Anna Karenina Directed by Joe Wright Written by Tom Stoppard United Kingdom and France, 2012 Joe Wright is, at heart, a flamboyant showman, cut from the same cloth as P.T. Barnum, someone whose florid sensibility is present even in the most down-to-earth literary adaptations, like Pride and Prejudice or Atonement. As such, the deliberately theatrical …

Anna Karenina Written for the screen by Tom Stoppard Directed by Joe Wright UK/France, 2012 For most of its running time, Joe Wright’s version of Anna Karenina takes place within interior confines, with nearly every scene occurring on a set of noticeable stages. There are no attempts to disguise the artificiality of the film’s appearance: …

Anna Karenina Written for the screen by Tom Stoppard Directed by Joe Wright UK/France, 2012 For most of its running time, Joe Wright’s version of Anna Karenina takes place within interior confines, with nearly every scene occurring on a set of noticeable stages. There are no attempts to disguise the artificiality of the film’s appearance: …

A Dangerous Method Written by Christopher Hampton Directed by David Cronenberg Canada / Germany / UK / Switzerland, 2011 David Cronenberg’s first film since 2007’s uneven mob thriller Eastern Promises, A Dangerous Method seems destined to confound and divide nearly both seasoned fans and casual moviegoers. Considerably more austere and literary than any of his …

The shortlist of actresses vying for the two major female roles in The Dark Knight Rises has been released, according to The Hollywood Reporter.  Those six actresses would be: Jessica Biel, Keira Knightley, Anne Hathaway, Kate Mara, Charlotte Riley, and Gemma Arterton.  Arterton is probably going to be the first one to go due to …