In updating James Thurber’s six-page short story The Secret Life of Walter Mitty to modern times, director-star Ben Stiller plants his titular dreamer in a scenario all too familiar and scary for middle-aged members of the Fourth Estate. Stiller’s Mitty works for a print magazine that is transitioning to an online-only publication, a move that will result in massive layoffs. … [Read more...]
‘Lazhar,’ thankfully, avoids school-movie platitudes
If the American education system is waiting for a Superman, then so, too, are American movie audiences clamoring for a film that correctly represents education as it really is. Our school-centric films are typically besotted with hokey, artless hyperbole, from crusading educators dodging bullets as they turn inner-city gangbangers into Shakespearean scholars to prep-school … [Read more...]