Culture

Leave it to Oliver Stone to churn out a sequel for Wall Street after 23 years, and manage to make it an eccentric and sometimes compelling flick. This time it's good versus evil under the umbrella of the financial crisis and mortgage debacle. You'd think the politically savvy Stone would be all over this in a JFK conspiracy way, but instead he uses the fall of the American empire to serve as a backdrop for an old-fashioned love story. Stone's direction is far from the psychedelic onslaught of Natural Born Killers

This is one of those movies where you find yourself smiling and even laughing out loud a few times while it's running, but then it ends and you feel a little violated. It made me wonder if director Andy Fickman had actually ever met a real live woman before, or if he'd only read about them in Misogynist Weekly. Every woman in this movie is vindictive, petty, cruel and duplicitous. Every man in the film is simpleminded yet benevolent. And every audience member is punished during the seemingly endless 105-minute running time, except for the shrieking pack of high-school girls in the back of the theater. They loved every single word of You Again, causing me to fear for the future of this country. Again.

There are several films I have been looking forward to this fall, chronologically the first being Easy A, starring Emma Stone as Olive Pendgerghast, a Hester Prynne for the digital age. Going in with such high expectations often times can be a downer when the movie doesn't live up to those, but Easy A was exactly what I wanted, by evidence of my wild laughter in the theater. Rather than account what was right and wrong with the film and wax critically about it, I am going to give you a list of the reasons why you should see this hilarious piece of teen comedy.

The Town is one of those movies you watch, all the while wishing it were better. It's not awful and some parts are engaging, but there is either something amiss or else too much stuff crammed into each prolonged scene. What we're left with is a decent TV show with swearing.

It's officially autumn and as the leaves start to fall it means several things, but the most exciting in the hearts of cinephiles across the region is the return of our very own independent film festival, BendFilm. We were lucky enough to get a sneak peek at the festival's lineup, that this year features 88 total films and added screenings at The Oxford Hotel. Check out our early picks, sure to satisfy your cinematic hunger before the festival, which kicks off on October 7.