Isaac's Film Reviews

Wake-up call Film review by Isaac Handelman Shockingly, in the half-century since Martin Luther King Jr. made his impact on history, not a single cinematic biopic has chronicled the life of the legendary reverend until now. After years of neglect, it’s probably for the best that Selma doesn’t try to shed light on the entirety of King’s momentous life. Instead, the film focuses squarely on the events leading up to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights, during which King and his colleagues based their demonstrations out of Selma, Alabama. Though Selma ’s story is confined, its themes are far-reaching, and it succeeds at depicting the importance of the civil rights movement and the ideals of its leaders despite being seemingly small in scope. The film pays as much attention to King as it does to those he motivated and inspired along the way. Its tendency not to focus solely on the leader means that it doesn’t get inside King’s head to quite the extent that some may hope for. As ...

Chasing the gold. Film review by Isaac Handelman Foxcatcher is director Bennett Miller’s follow-up to his 2011 hit Moneyball , and though both films reside in the sports biopic genre, the similarities end there. Foxcatcher is, by all accounts, a darker, more thematically mature film; its ability to consistently retain viewer interest in spite of its deliberate pace speaks to Miller’s increased comfort in the director’s chair since his last outing. The film starts slow, though not detrimentally so. Viewers are given time to assimilate the drab life of pro-wrestler Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum), whose time since winning the Olympic gold medal in 1984 has been spent in training monotony, preparing for future competition under the shadow of his brother Dave (Mark Ruffalo). Screenwriters Dan Futterman and E. Max Frye subtly depict Mark’s feelings of inferiority to his brother during the film’s opening section, setting the stage for the drama to follow. Mark jumps on the oppor...

A serviceable biopic about an exceptional man Film review by Isaac Handelman In The Imitation Game , real-life mathematician Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) is a genius who is eternally misunderstood. The film itself, by comparison, goes to great lengths to ensure that everyday viewers are not left in the dark by the sophisticated lingo used by the on-screen characters -- and it does a marvelous job of making its complex subject matter accessible without dumbing it down outright. Early on in the film, Turing’s goal is clearly established: he’s to decrypt the German coding machine known as “Enigma” in order to intercept important military communications and ensure that the Allies emerge victorious from World War II. The film balances Turing’s high-stakes race against time with an accompanying account of his troubled personal life, plagued by his closeted homosexuality and severe inability to cope with normal, social situations. The latter issue was, as the film portray...