FEATURES
By Chris Kaltenbach and Chris Kaltenbach,SUN MOVIE CRITIC | December 13, 2002
Heaven is so determined to be poetic and beautiful, it comes across as forced and didactic, a lesson in relative morality whose storyline doesn't so much flow as lurch from one stretch to another. Cate Blanchett, never lovelier or more vulnerable, is Philippa, an English woman living in Italy whose husband has recently died, indirectly the victim of a politically connected drug dealer the police refuse to touch. Frustrated that her continued pleas for them to do something are ignored - she's also a schoolteacher, and has seen the effect the man's drugs have on her pupils, compounding her resolve to bring him to justice - she takes matters into her own hands by planting a bomb in his office.
ENTERTAINMENT
By Mary Carole McCauley, The Baltimore Sun | August 5, 2011
For actor Hugo Weaving, the distance between his farm in Sydney, Australia and Los Angeles isn't just 7,500 miles, give or take. It's the distance between his identities as a pop culture icon and as a conservatory-trained actor who revels in the classical canon. Both of Weaving's faces are on prominent display in the Baltimore area this month. As a cartoon villain with inverted facial features in a red rubber mask, Weaver is stomping around the screen in the dozens of movie theaters where "Captain America" is now showing.
FEATURES
By Tim Smith and Tim Smith,tim.smith@baltsun.com | November 3, 2009
"So many people have condemned the play for its sordid theme," Vivien Leigh said in a 1950s interview about Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire," the vehicle for one of her most indelible achievements as an actress. "To me it is an infinitely moving plea for tolerance for all weak, frail creatures, blown about like leaves before the wind of circumstance." That plea seemed more affecting than ever as the Sydney Theatre Company's production of "Streetcar" unfolded Saturday night at the Kennedy Center, with Cate Blanchett inhabiting the central role of Blanche DuBois.
FEATURES
By Chris Kaltenbach and Chris Kaltenbach,Sun Reporter | February 25, 2008
LOS ANGELES -- Last night was a great time to be Joel and Ethan Coen, as the Minnesota-born brothers performed an Oscar hat-trick, collecting gold statuettes for producing, writing and directing 2007's best picture winner, No Country for Old Men. The film, the story of a drug deal gone horribly bad and the aftermath gone even worse, was the evening's most-honored film, winning four Oscars.
FEATURES
By Chris Kaltenbach and Chris Kaltenbach,sun reporter | January 23, 2008
Any other year, and fans of the Academy Awards would be buzzing today about the twin nominations for Cate Blanchett, about the first-time nominations for two aging veterans in the twilight of their careers, and about the wide-open race for the best picture Oscar, where it's truly anyone's guess which movie will win. But the talk so far this year isn't so much about who will win the Oscars as it is about who will watch them. Thanks to the Hollywood writers' strike, now well into its third month, it appears likely the Feb. 24 awards show will have to go on unscripted.
FEATURES
By Michael Sragow and Michael Sragow,Sun Movie Critic | January 12, 2007
Real intimacy has become so rare in today's movies that the fake intimacy of Notes on a Scandal may take you in, then leave you feeling rooked. Seldom has so much first-rate acting and top craftsmanship been wasted on such a small-minded melodrama. The cascade of interest it has aroused this award season may just reflect the current hipness of cruelty. The film grabs your interest as a tale of two flawed teachers: the fetching art instructor Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett), who sleeps with a 15-year-old student, and the battle-ax history department head, Barbara Covett (Judi Dench)