Peculiar Reviewer

The first Chilean film ever to be nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar is Pablo Larraín's No , which revolves around the 1988 Chilean national plebiscite of General Augusto Pinochet for another 8-year term as Chile's President. Pinochet had forcefully taken over control of Chile in 1973, overthrowing Salvador Allende's socialist government. In this referendum, the public is asked to vote a controversial "yes" or "no" to continue the military dictatorship that has existed in their country for the past fifteen years. A political retelling without the fluff and glamorization, Larraín blends together actual found footage through the advertising campaigns of both parties in this examination of the ad tactics used to bring a nation to a decision for their country. Gael García Bernal plays an in-demand advertising executive who is persuaded by the opposing side to run the No campaign, which aims...

I switch on my flickering neon Bates Motel sign and have a seat to watch the highly anticipated television prequel to Hitchcock's  Psycho , Bates Motel on A&E . A grown-up Freddie Highmore ( Charlie and the Chocolate Factory , Finding Neverland ) portrays demure and awkward 17-year old Norman Bates who lives with his mother Norma Bates, played by the perfectly cast  Vera Farmiga ( Up in the Air , The Departed ). After losing his father, Norma takes a reluctant, yet obeying Norman to a small Oregon town to start a new life. They purchase the Seafairer Motel which is located just on the corner of Murder and Batty Street. Thus, a family business has begun. Bates Motel is quiet and composed (although not by the legendary Bernard Hermann). It is tidy and fully absorbing. Nestor Carbonell as Sheriff Alex Romero is either a direct descendant of Anthony Perkins, or cast because of his uncanny resemblance to the original Norman Bat...

In 1939, many say to be the greatest year in film, MGM's The Wizard of Oz  had no chance up against Gone with the Wind at the Academy Awards, yet had it been released one year prior, or later, the beloved fantasy adventure that launched Judy Garland's career would have swept away the awards. At 16 years of age, Judy Garland was already Strasberg-ing it before Strasberg. Well, Sam Raimi's Oz the Great and Powerful has no Dorothy, basing itself on L. Frank Baum's Oz novels set 20 years before Dorothy shows up. Jack the Giant Slayer seems to have been slayed by the Land of Oz at the box office this weekend, taking in $79.1 million and leaving the competition in Kansas, which is precisely what the conman circus magician Oscar Diggs ( James Franco ) does. Transported away in a hot air balloon from Kansas to the Land of Oz in an amazing Terry Gilliamesque tornado scene, Oscar meets three witches who believe the young magician to be the G...