REVIEW: The Station Agent [2003]

“Would you mind not looking at me right now?” Actor Thomas McCarthy is quite the paradox. The man has a face full of smugness and unchecked attitude, making him ideal for intelligent, arrogant jerks. Maybe jerk is too strong a word since he also has the capacity for remorse, but I do find it apt after just recently seeing him become one of the most amoral characters on the HBO series “The Wire”. What makes him a paradox, however, is his foray into writing and directing. For some reason—perhaps because…

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BNFF08 REVIEW: The Cake Eaters [2008]

“What are we, elephants?” Mary Stewart Masterson’s film The Cake Eaters is a very well done piece of cinema. A slice of rural life in a sleepy town, we are privy to a period of turmoil and discovery for two families living there. The Kimbrough’s have recently lost their matriarch and a second family is dealing with the hardships of raising a child with Friedriech’s Ataxia. Both groups are thrust together with some chance meetings, helping each other get through the tough times and remember the good in living life.…

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