movie

Prisoners is a perfect film for drama-loving masochists. Grief and injustice dominate the plot as a crude reminder that bad things happen to good people, but the film does so in a way where you cannot blink, let alone go to the bathroom, until the end.

The trailer was an unfortunate false advertisement of the film. It gives little justice to the intellectual thriller of fist-clenching tension, which kept the theater jumping at every unexpected turn.

In other words, be prepared to flinch.

Larry Elin spent most of 1981 holed up in his Elmsford, N.Y., office, staring at a boxy, 8-bit computer that crashed almost as often as it worked.

His fellow employees at MAGI Synthavision, a tiny computer graphics firm, regularly stayed overnight to work on the project. If anyone needed a nap, they curled up under their desks. If the computer went down, they all struggled to fix it.

And after 12 months of work, the team finally had something to show for it: a 22-minute sequence in the 1982 cult classic TRON.

You’d be hard-pressed to find an art house film buff who thinks Syracuse is a haven for alternative cinema.

There are the three area Regal Cinemas (all located in malls) that offer the general public the top studio releases of the month in less-than-regal atmospheres. Those seeking an alternative to the generic multiplex have to venture 30 minutes by car from Syracuse University's campus to the Manlius Art Cinema, which screens films of a more independent variety in a decrepit environment resembling a grimy tunnel.

When Murphy’s Law is kicking into high gear and everything in your life that can go wrong is, what then?  Do you find comfort in laughing at the even greater misfortunes of others?  If you do, go see A Serious Man, the new black comedy by Joel and Ethan Coen.