By Brian Lafferty

May 7, 2012 (San Diego) – I recently thought about my future. I contemplated my dreams and wrote them down. Some of them are easily achievable while others are quite grand. I may not have accomplished much as an adult other than graduating from college, being a film critic and Autism columnist, and acquiring paralegal certification. But it’s not too late to dare myself to do great things.

By Brian Lafferty

May 4, 2012 (San Diego) – The Pirates! Band of Misfits opens with a feel-good opening sequence. The Pirate Captain (voiced by Hugh Grant) and his misfit crew pillages island after island in the Caribbean under the strains of Tenpole Tudor’s “Swords of a Thousand Men.” It’s a fitting song. The way the rah-rah and go-getting lyrics and music matched the action on-screen made me smile.

If only the film matched that energy and excitement for the film’s remaining 85 minutes.

By Brian Lafferty

May 4, 2012 (San Diego) – Roger Brown (Aksel Hennie) is not your typical thief. In fact, he’s your typical man. You would never guess that this meek, average businessman is a master art thief so skilled at his craft that he leaves not a single trace of evidence behind. Hennie, at first, does too good a job; his character is undistinguished to the point where he is dangerously close to being too hard to buy.

By Brian Lafferty

May 4, 2012 (San Diego) – The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye – which opens today at the Reading Gaslamp – is not about the progressive rock band first fronted by Peter Gabriel, then later by Phil Collins. I would have rather seen a documentary, any documentary, about that instead of this one. Ballad is a bizarre, pretentious, and ultimately dull sixteen-millimeter home movie.

By Brian Lafferty

April 24, 2012 (San Diego) – Alfred Hitchcock once opined that a great film requires three things: the script, the script and the script. I would also add a fourth element, the title. A movie’s title need not be catchy, but it must hook the potential moviegoer while describing what it’s about. It could be as simple as Titanic or it could be as long as The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain.

By Brian Lafferty

April 24, 2012 (San Diego) – As a die-hard San Diego Padres fan, I sympathize with Billy Beane, the subject of Moneyball. I can understand the frustration with the financial constraints that can befall a small-market team like the Oakland As. It’s unfair that the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox happen to be situated among the nation’s top media markets and can afford to spend ample amounts of dollars to lure in free agents.

By Brian Lafferty

April 13, 2012 (San Diego) – The plot synopsis is the easiest part of writing film criticism. It’s also my least favorite. It puts a crimp on word counts; far too often I’ve had to jettison entire paragraphs of criticism to begrudgingly accommodate it.

"Will Power `Bill' would be the first one to say, `Never, never, never give up the fight." -- Robert Schwent

April 11, 2012 (San Diego) -- It is with a heavy heart that we must inform our readers that William "Bill" Gerald Schwent has died of a "circulatory event", his family has informed ECM. 

Known to our readers as author of the acerbic and insightful "Will Power Report"  column, Will was found by his wife, Jan, around 3 a.m. this morning. 

By Brian Lafferty

March 23, 2012 (San Diego) – The Hunger Games is gripping, emotional, and gritty. It’s Hollywood’s second great survival film after Joe Carnahan’s The Grey. On top of that, it’s an indictment on the social disparities between the elite and lower class, and on American society’s obsession with reality television.

By Brian Lafferty

March 22, 2012 (San Diego) – My first exposure to Vietnamese director Anh Hung Tran was in my Language of Film class at California State University, Fullerton. In this class, we had to watch at least two to three movies per week to analyze such film grammar as movement, color, rhythm, lines, space, etc.

March 19, 2012 (San Diego's East County) -These shelter dogs have been provided training to become dream dogs for individuals or families. This month, we have several wonderful dogs to choose from -- from pups to mature pets. This  male Basset Hound / Dachshund is 9 months old. He weighs 34 pounds and is  good with all dogs, and loves people! 

By Brian Lafferty

March 16, 2012 (San Diego) – There is a compelling story waiting to be told in The Forgiveness of Blood. Instead, what’s left is the cinematic equivalent of an uneaten banana. It gets riper and riper, until it eventually turns to inedible mush. A two-hour missed opportunity, it never blossoms, thanks to the most inept cinematography I’ve witnessed since last year’s Incendies.

By Brian Lafferty

March 12, 2012 (San Diego) – Have any of you encountered the **** People Say Internet meme that recently flared up on the Internet? A great friend of mine introduced me to it weeks ago. Among them are **** Rich People Say or **** Guys Don’t Say Out Loud. I’m not one to get caught up in Internet memes, so I forgot all about it.