Look out, Filth is worth every bit of that R rating, in sight as well as sound. If you’re still up for it, what follows is a heartbreaking, devastatingly intimate and intense performance by James McAvoy.
Released last fall in Scotland, Ireland and England, Filth was dropped on American audiences only a few short months ago. Liz and I actually attended a special screening in May, where James McAvoy and Imogen Poots introduced the film. It was a star-studded event with Patrick Stewart and David Bowie amongst the crowd. Vanessa Redgrave inadvertently held the door for me. It was quite the moment. Oh, who’s that? Why it’s Parker Posey. Yeah, it was a good time.
Sometimes movies are anchored in the minds of those who watch them, so much so that they become a permanent part of the landscape of when they were watched or released. I first saw The Big Chill when it hit home video back in 1984, but I had already soaked in an integral part of the film as my parents played the soundtrack (on vinyl of course) at home on a regular rotation (and usually at parties they threw). I was immersed in the film and although its subject matter was rather advanced (suicide) for someone of 9-years old, I truly think it is a film that had a profound effect on me without me really realizing it. So when I had the chance to review Jesse Zwick‘s 
While I lived through the final gasps of the Vietnam War, I was way too young to recall any of it. This war hangs over our country’s history like a rain cloud and it’s rare that we ever hear of much in the way of good that came from it. Enter Rory Kennedy‘s superb documentary, 
Having gone to my fair share of film festivals, it is rare that I agree with the juries who award the prizes for “best of the fest.” They often see far more in films that I dismiss and frequently don’t give enough credence to those that I love, because as anyone knows my opinion is always correct (wink, wink). The one time I attended a fest that got it 100% was the 2004 Chicago International Film Festival when Nimrod Antal‘s mesmerizing Kontroll took home the Gold Hugo. Now, while I didn’t see every film at this year’s 
For all the summer blockbuster busts that 2014 has produced, it’s refreshing when a film like Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is released. Set a decade after the events of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Dawn takes us further into the backstory of how the human race succumbed to the apes and ultimately lost the planet. Director Matt Reeves takes over the franchise and creates a smart, visually stunning, spectacle that revolves more around the apes as the central characters than the humans. Andy Serkis returns to the motion capture suit to again play the role of Caesar, the leader of the apes, whose history has lead him to both respect and fear the human race. Will Dawn be the smash hit Fox is hoping for and pave a fresh new path for further sequels in this storied franchise? 
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