dvd of the week Steven Spielberg’s by-the-numbers spy suspense film stars Tom Hanks as James Donovan, a respected lawyer who is assigned to defend a Soviet spy in the late 1950s. Despite occasionally violent opposition to his treating Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance) as deserving of due process and legal assistance, Donovan soldiers forth, the pinnacle…
dvr this Turner Classic Movies, 2:45 p.m., Friday, Feb. 28 Endlessly debated when it was released in 1994, Philadelphia is both an AIDS story sanitized for the masses and yet revolutionary in its depiction of the gay experience. Jonathan Demme’s direction is smooth and restrained, and Tom Hanks’ performance is legendary: so moving, so empathic…
dvd of the week David Mitchell’s novel Cloud Atlas, considered one of the greatest literary achievements of the last two decades by many critics, was thought to be impossible to adapt for film. There are six narratives that take place in wildly different times and spaces and they’re connected in weird and wonderful ways. The…
In the digital age, a sexy picture can transcend the confines of sexual orientation. As proof, Chicago-based musician Chet Haze, whose father is Tom Hanks, started a Twitter flurry Sunday with suggestive snapshots that got the attention of both male and female fans. Haze posted two photos on the Twitter companion site, Instagram, and within…
About ten minutes after the end of maudlin 9/11 drama Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, I was standing outside the theater, feeling the tears drying on my face and the crying jags subside, and I got angry. I asked my friend who I now feel guilty for bringing along, “Why in the world was it…
