Paddington 2, review: Bear maximum Imagine a London where bears are accepted as persons and move about freely; a London where Aunt Lucy and her nephew Paddington board a bus and buy tickets for “One-and-a-half bears.” Imagine a bear named Paddington, so called because his adoptive human family find him at Paddington railway station. And imagine a bear that has the highest moral standards and sets the benchmark for ethics and courtesy, not only among regular humans, but even jailbi...

The Sense of an Ending, Review by Siraj Syed: Sensible transition from novel to film Many a times, tragic-romantic novels that get made into films tend to be laboured and over ‘textualised’. Not so the The Sense of an Ending. Indian director Ritesh Batra keeps this British film largely simple and lets his actors carry it forward, which works well. A simple story with a tragic and profound undercurrent of regret, the film does not have too much to offer, but gets its basics right. ...

Big Game, Review: Game on Incredible and ambitious, Big Game is also warm and infectious. It is a good example of how some thoughtful writing can make a far-fetched premise convincing and exciting. Jalmari Helander, the Finnish film-maker who first made a splash with the controversial Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010), has adapted a 2013 novel by Petri Jokiranta and blended both Hollywood and northern Finland with bartender-like finesse. A hunting clan in Finland is initiating 13 year-ol...

  by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent   On March 14, catch up on LE WEEK-END; it's a cinematic flu shot. Because, instead of Caped Crusaders tasked with their Superhero schemes, this movie presents a human-sized dose of adult life. "People can change," Lindsay Duncan's character avers. As in, "they can get worse." Already an award winner for Linsday Duncan (BIFA), Jim Broadbent and writer Hanif Kureishi (My Beautiful Launderette), the film ...

The Independent Film Festival Boston kicked off their 2010 festivities by honoring Kevin Kline with the IFFBoston 2010 Career Achievement Award and screening his new film, The Extra Man.  This unusual comedy pairs Kline with Paul Dano in an unlikely mentor/mentee relationship.  Supported by Katie Homes, John C. Reilly, and Patti D’Arbanville, these seemingly unlikable characters navigate New York City, the written word, and women in a way that turns out to be completely charming.  The Q&...