Hello, My Name Is Doris (opens in Cleveland 3/18 at the Cedar Lee Theatre)

[HELLO MY NAME IS DORIS opens in Cleveland on Friday March 18th exclusively at the Cedar Lee Theatre.]

Review by Joseph Anthony

HELLO, MY NAME IS DORIS feels like an accomplishment. Perhaps because DORIS feels like several films wrapped in one. A comedy, a fantasy, a drama, an indie flick, a coming of age story. Not only does it operate under all those categories, it operates functionally and quite successfully.

When DORIS begins, our title character, Doris Miller played by Sally Field, has lost her mother. Much of her life to this point has been dedicated to her mom for whom she has given up her own social and emotional needs to care for. Doris looks like a stereotypical cat lady, with a bit more flare. She has a few friends, an accounting job at a fashion firm in New York City, and a brother (Stephen Root) who is worried about her hoarding habits. He and his wife also want her to move out of their childhood home (in part to make money off the house). She takes the ferry from Staten Island each day to work. It is clear that Doris isn’t one for change.

Lincoln

Review by Bob Ignizio

Although Steven Spielberg's LINCOLN does provide insight into what made our 16th president the man he was, it's not so much a biopic as it is a movie about how the sausages are made. By that I'm referring to the legislative process, about which John Godfrey Saxe (and not Otto Von Bismarck, who often gets the credit) famously said, “Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made.”

The particular sausage being ground up and shoved into its casing in LINCOLN is the 13th amendment which, when it was eventually ratified, abolished slavery in the United States of America. Obviously that's a good thing, but like much that takes place in congress it required a great deal of careful maneuvering and political favors to reach fruition. And while it would be nice to think that “Honest Abe” was strictly above board in all these dealings, the truth is that then as now, the lawmaking process often crossed into ethical gray areas.