War Witch
Film Review by Kam Williams

Komona’s (Rachel Mwanza) life was irreversibly altered at the tender age of 12 when rebel forces led by the Great Tiger (Mizinga Mwinga) rampaged through her tiny African village. The unfortunate girl was forced at gunpoint to kill her own parents (Starlette Mathata and Alex Herabo) before being abducted and brainwashed into joining the cause.

Deep in the jungle, she was befriended by other kids orphaned by the conflict before being trained to use a weapon against government soldiers. However, more valuable than marksmanship, Komona developed an uncanny knack for sensing enemy positions, a skill which proved handy during encounters with deadly snipers and machine gun nests.

This supernatural ability came to the attention of her superiors, and by the time she turned 13, the so-called “War Witch” was appointed a personal advisor of General Tiger. In that capacity, Komona also had to work closely with Magician (Serge Kanyinda), an albino boy with extra sensory perception.

It’s been said that there are no atheists in foxholes. Apparently there aren’t any celibates in foxholes either. For, it’s not long before the two seers fall madly in love. Magician proposes, they go AWOL, and Komona ends up pregnant by her 14th birthday.

Thus unfolds War Witch, a haunting drama chronicling an adolescent’s coming-of-age under the most trying of circumstances. Written and directed by Canadian Kim Nguyen who shot on location in the Congo, the moving character study was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Foreign Film category.

The picture is cleverly constructed as a series of vivid flashbacks narrated by Komona directly addressing the unborn baby growing in her belly. While the plucky protagonist easily earns our admiration for maintaining her sanity in the midst of the madness, there is still something slightly unsettling about a production so matter-of-fact about the endless atrocities providing the backdrop for such a touching front story.

21st Century Africa presented as a godforsaken wasteland conjuring up primitive images reminiscent of the ghoulish dystopia chronicled by Conrad in Heart of Darkness.

Very Good (3 stars)

Unrated

In French and Lingala with subtitles

Running time: 90 minutes

Distributor: TriBeCa Film

To see a trailer for War Witch, visit

A Good Day to Die Hard
Film Review by Kam Williams

When his wayward son lands in legal trouble in Russia, John McClane (Bruce Willis) makes his way to Moscow to spring Jack (Jai Courtney) from jail. But because the two have been estranged for a few years, the fretting father has no idea his ne‘er-do-well offspring has cleaned up his act and is now working undercover as a CIA Agent.

In fact, Jack has a very good reason for being in Eastern Europe, namely, to thwart a terrorist cell bent on world domination from getting its mitts on a stash of enriched uranium. And, once the truth comes out, father and son grudgingly join forces to keep the Free World safe for democracy.

That’s about all the plot you need to know to follow A Good Day to Die Hard, the fifth installment in the storied franchise starring Bruce Willis. Unfortunately, the movie is basically a brainless indulgence in pyrotechnics, stunts and special f/x, marked by endless explosions, gun fights, car chases and death-defying leaps.

Diehard Die Hard fans will undoubtedly appreciate Willis’ trademark resort to smirking and sarcasm as effective weapons against evil adversaries whenever he’s faced with overwhelming odds. Plus, there’s the comical badinage between John and junior whenever embittered Jack belatedly endeavors to work out his childhood abandonment issues.

Macho John might muster up enough empathy to offer a hug, only to have the Kodak moment undermined by another wave of Soviet assassins armed to the teeth. So, don’t expect sophisticated dialogue and you won’t be disappointed. The best this simplistic script has to offer is professional wrestler-like villains asking: “Do you know what I hate about Americans? Everything!”

An implausible, action adventure featuring a couple of bomb and bulletproof protagonists more resilient than Wile E. Coyote, thanks to the miracle of cartoon physics!

Fair (1 star)

Rated R for profanity and violence

In English and Russian with subtitles

Running time: 98 minutes

Distributor: 20th Century Fox

To see a trailer for A Good Day to Die Hard, visit

Oscar Predictions 2013
by Kam Williams

Lincoln opened the awards season as the odds-on favorite to win the Academy Award for Best Picture by virtue of its landing the most nominations. But the snub of Ben Affleck in the Best Director category made his movie, Argo, the sentimental favorite of the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild, and the momentum of that sympathy vote is likely to carry over to Oscar night.

While Lincoln won’t take home the top prize, it will nevertheless win the most awards (5), followed by Les Miserables (3), and then by a number of films taking 2 apiece: Argo, Silver Linings Playbook, Life of Pi, Skyfall and Django Unchained. A quintet of Oscars sans Best Picture won’t exactly be a sweep, but it’s a far better fate than that of Zero Dark Thirty, whose hopes were torpedoed by political blowback even before it had a chance to open in theaters.

Besides forecasting the winners below, I also indicate which among the nominees in the major categories are actually the most deserving. And because some great performances are invariably snubbed by the Academy, I also point out a few I feel were overlooked entirely.

The 85th Academy Awards will air live on ABC on Sunday, February 24th at 8 PM ET/5 PM PT, and will be hosted by Seth MacFarlane.

Best Picture

Will Win: Argo

Deserves to Win: Zero Dark Thirty

Overlooked: Looper

Best Director

Will Win: Steven Spielberg (Lincoln)

Deserves to Win: David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook)

Overlooked: Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty), Ben Affleck (Argo) and Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained)

Best Actor

Will Win: Daniel Day Lewis (Lincoln)

Deserves to Win: Daniel Day Lewis (Lincoln)

Overlooked: John Hawkes (The Sessions) and Suraj Sharma (Life of Pi)

Best Actress

Will Win: Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook)

Deserves to Win: Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty)

Overlooked: Rachel Weisz (The Deep Blue Sea) and Ann Dowd (Compliance)

Best Supporting Actor

Will Win: Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln)

Deserves to Win: Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained)

Overlooked: Leonardo DiCaprio (Django Unchained) and Matthew McConaughey (Magic Mike)

Best Supporting Actress

Will Win: Ann Hathaway (Les Miserables)

Deserves to Win: Helen Hunt (The Sessions)

Overlooked: Emily Blunt (Looper)

Best Original Screenplay:

Will Win: Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained)

Deserves to Win: Mark Boal (Zero Dark Thirty)

Overlooked: Rian Johnson (Looper)

Best Adapted Screenplay:

Will Win: Tony Kushner (Lincoln)

Deserves to Win: David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook)

Overlooked: Ben Lewin (The Sessions)

Predictions for Secondary Categories

Animated Feature: Brave

Foreign Language Film: Amour

Documentary Feature: Searching for Sugarman

Cinematography: Life of Pi

Costume Design: Anna Karenina

Production Design: Les Miserables

Film Editing: Argo

Makeup and Hairstyling: The Hobbit

Original Score: Lincoln

Original Song: Skyfall

Sound Editing: Zero Dark Thirty

Sound Mixing: Les Miserables

Visual Effects: Life of Pi

Beautiful Creatures
Film Review by Kam Williams

Ethan (Alden Ehrenreich) has lived his whole life in Gatlin, South Carolina, a tiny town in denial about the fact that the South lost the Civil War. The community is so backwards that it has banned books as seemingly innocuous as “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

This frustrating state of affairs has left the curious sophomore determined to attend a college far, far away from the Bible Belt. In the meantime, however, he is secretly reading any of the censored titles he can get his hands on.

For months, Ethan has also been haunted by a recurring nightmare in which he attempts to approach a gorgeous ghost, only to die right before reaching her. Consequently, he wakes up in a cold sweat every morning with a crush on an apparent apparition he thinks doesn’t really exist.

But, as luck would have it, a new transfer student who’s the spitting image of the girl of his dreams shows up in Ethan’s class on the first day of the fall semester. Recently-orphaned Lena (Alice Englert) has just been taken in by her Uncle Macon Ravenwood (Jeremy Irons), the wealthy neighborhood weirdo whose family founded Gatlin generations ago.

Most of the locals know better than to trespass onto the unwelcoming, Gothic Ravenwood Estate, but not Ethan, who’s too smitten with Lena to care. It’s not long before he and Lena are an item, although the flirty 15 year-old does her best to warn her new beau that she’s nothing but trouble.

If only Ethan bothered to consult librarian/seer Amma Treadeau (Viola Davis), he’d know to steer clear of the entire Ravenwood clan. For, truth be told, they’re “Casters,” meaning otherworldly beings whose supernatural powers kick in when they turn 16. And with Lena’s impending 16th birthday just over the horizon, the burning question is whether she’ll be a good witch or drawn to the dark side by her cousin (Emmy Rossum) and late mother (Emma Thompson).

Thus unfolds Beautiful Creatures, a deliciously naughty adaptation of Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl’s young adult novel of the same name. Directed by Richard LaGravenese, the picture’s plotline is a bit reminiscent of the vampire/human series Twilight, except with the human and non-human protagonists’ genders switched.

Between a talented cast and a compelling script, Beautiful Creatures is bound to do well with the targeted tweener/teen demo with which such cross-species romances seem to resonate nowadays. A viable jumpstart of yetta nudder escapist fantasy franchise.

Very Good (3 stars)

Rated PG-13 for violence, sexuality and scary images

Running time: 118 minutes

Distributor: Warner Brothers

To see a trailer for Beautiful Creatures, visit

Saving Lincoln
Film Review by Kam Williams

A bodyguard doesn’t have the luxury of making a single slip in the process of protecting the President, since a would-be assassin needs but one opportunity to succeed in his deadly mission. Ward Hill Lamon (Lea Coco) learned that lesson the hard way when John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln in the back of the head on April 14, 1865.

Ironically, that was the very same day on which Honest Abe created the U.S. Secret Service. For, up until then, Lincoln’s security detail essentially consisted of just one person, the self-appointed Lamon.

In fact, the former law partner was the only pal Lincoln had brought with him from Illinois to Washington, D.C. As a banjo-playing, joke-telling confidant, he not only served as a sounding board but periodically provided the President with some well-needed comic and musical relief from the strains of the taxing job.

After all, The Railsplitter had been in the White House but a month when the Civil War erupted. Thus, he was burdened his entire tenure in office by the stresses associated with the conflict. And while he was trying to preserve the Union, he narrowly survived numerous attempts on his life (including a bullet passing through his stovepipe hat), the first of which was thwarted before his inauguration early in 1861.

Written and directed by Salvador Litvak, Saving Lincoln is an intimate buddy biopic chronicling the pair’s enduring friendship. The film unfolds from the perspective of narrator Lamon, who ominously concedes that, “I never could be at ease when absent from Lincoln’s side.”

Among the many plots the ever-vigilant escort managed to foil was a Rebel kidnapping scheme to hold the President ransom for 200,000 Confederate POWs. Sadly, Lamon was conspicuously absent the fateful night of the cowardly ambush in the box at Ford theater during the Third Act of the performance of a farce called “Our American Cousin.”

Having previously dispatched his trusted bodyguard to Richmond, Virginia, Lincoln ill-advisedly ignored the warning, “Do not go out, particularly to the theater.” A grieving Lamon later waxed philosophical about the tragedy, concluding, “I did not save Mr. Lincoln, because he did not wish to be saved. He completed his work and earned his rest.”

A fresh take on The Great Emancipator from the point-of-view of a constant companion who had been at the President’s side at Gettysburg and many an historical moment except the day he died.

Very Good (3 stars)

Unrated

Running time: 101 minutes

Distributor: Quad Cinema

To see a trailer for Saving Lincoln, visit