The Edge of Patience - 04 Feb 2010

Edge of Darkness treads a well-worn path by Justin Senkbile Director Martin Campbell’s Edge of Darkness (an adaptation of his own BBC miniseries) is a movie we’ve all seen. Grumpy cops fight slimy politicians with a bunch of guns, and violence is avenged with even more intense violence. Beyond the clearly suspect message (and this movie definitely has a message, although perhaps not the one it thinks), it’s a formula that any director would have a tough time kicking any life into. Boston detective Thomas Craven (Mel Gibson) is rushing his suddenly ill daughter Emma (Bojana Novakovic) to the hospital when she’s brutally gunned down outside his house. Everyone assumes the killer was targeting the detective, but when Craven starts following his own leads, he begins unraveling something much more complicated.

Read More ...

Slowed Odes - 04 Feb 2010

Bright Star is pretty, poetic and plodding by Ryan Syrek If the main players were slightly more angular and the subject matter were significantly less British, writer/director Jane Campion’s Bright Star could pass for a Nicholas Sparks adaptation. Thankfully, this tale of poesy and profundity exceeds the wading pool Sparks frequents. It dives head first into deeper waters. Campion’s stylish staging of the love between John Keats (Ben Whishaw) and Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish) is almost enough to make a General Studies student switch to an English major.

Read More ...

Dude, Where's My Guitar? - 04 Feb 2010

Bridges’ vocal range is better than his acting range by Ben Coffman If you put Jeff Bridges in a bowling alley and hand him a pair of shades and a drink, you can’t help but think of his iconic character “The Dude” in The Big Lebowski. So, if you’re a first-time director (like Scott Cooper) using an actor like Bridges, wouldn’t you do everything in your power to avoid those almost inevitable comparisons? Unless, of course, you’re cashing in on the popularity of that character, and the man that played him. In the first scene of Cooper’s Crazy Heart, we watch Bridges’ character, roots rocker Bad Blake, sidle into a bowling alley, plop down on a stool and order a drink. Thankfully, it isn’t a White Russian. Instead, Blake has a penchant for whiskey. Amazingly talented and perpetually down on his luck, Blake just pulled into Pueblo in his ’78 Chevy Suburban for a small-time gig.

Read More ...

About Last Year - 27 Jan 2010

The best and worst films of 2009 by Ryan Syrek Pretentious writers who glorify films of yesteryear to lord their false sense of superiority over younger generations can suck it: 2009 was one of the all-time great years for movies. Over the last 12 months, a bevy of mainstream films studied hard and brought home a report card so decorated with one vowel that it should be proudly hung on the cultural fridge as proof that our best days aren’t necessarily behind us. Heck, even 2009’s missteps went full tilt; they weren’t merely bad, they were racist and evil. So if you hear someone kvetching about “the state of movies these days,” smack them upside the head with the following lists.

Read More ...

Age of Innocence, Aborted - 20 Jan 2010

The ups and downs of The Lovely Bones by Justin Senkbile Teen angst takes a particularly twisted turn in Peter “Lord of the Rings” Jackson’s The Lovely Bones. Adapted from the much-loved novel by Alice Sebold, the film is a grade-A tearjerker that’s unfortunately undercut by its famously visionary director’s digital flights of fancy. Smack in the middle of awkward adolescence and on the eve of her first date, 14-year-old Suzie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan) is brutally murdered by her inconspicuous neighbor George Harvey (Stanley Tucci). From a netherworld limbo, Suzie observes life on earth continuing without her. Her devoted father, Jack (Mark Wahlberg), becomes obsessed with finding her murderer; eventually causing Suzie’s mother Abigail (Rachel Weisz) to leave. Little sister Lindsey (Rose McIver) becomes a relatively well-adjusted star student, and Mr. Harvey goes unnoticed, slowly, quietly planning his next abduction.

Read More ...

Prophet Sharing - 20 Jan 2010

Washington plays a futuristic warrior poet in The Book of Eli by Ben Coffman Several recent movies have taken a crack at depicting a post-apocalyptic world. In The Road, director John Hillcoat’s after-disaster America was dead and impossibly bleak, with its few remaining residents starving. 2012 showed us the shiny, happy version of the end of days in which the apocalypse served as an almost painless means of population control. And in the Hughes brothers’ The Book of Eli, we see the future as a dry, cratered landscape, where everyone dresses in Road Warrior chic — that is, heavy on fashion accessories.

Read More ...

An ‘Ordinary’ Life - 20 Jan 2010

That’s all A Single Man wants by Michael J. Krainak With Avatar’s recent win at the Golden Globes reconfiguring the Oscar race and the “face of film,” A Single Man is the odd man out in more ways than one. Retro to the max, the first film directed by famed fashion designer Tom Ford tells the wrenching story of George (Colin Firth) who loses his beloved partner Jim (Matthew Goode) in the early ’60s. America may be on the cusp of a cultural revolution, but George flaunts neither his sexual orientation nor his grief in this don’t ask, don’t tell environment.

Read More ...

Youthful Indiscretions - 14 Jan 2010

Revolt is fun, not too revolting by Ben Coffman In the canon of coming-of-age/teenage hornball flicks, Youth in Revolt stands apart from the crowd for several reasons. First, there isn’t a single hole (peep, glory or otherwise) drilled into a wall. There’s also a sinful lack of gross-out comedy, which has come to define the genre (think American Pie). Finally, the film’s actually pretty smart, an attribute missing among most of the genre. At first blush — and I mean that literally, as the film begins with some rather private exploits — Michael Cera (Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist) seems to be portraying your average, sex-deprived teenager. However, we soon discover that his character, Nick Twisp, is a bit of an old soul. He loves Frank Sinatra records and classic novels, and, as the film’s narrator, is much more literary-minded than today’s texting teens.

Read More ...

Morality Playtime - 14 Jan 2010

Do not pass on Parnassus by Ryan Syrek Terry Gilliam is cilantro. Those who love him covet his wild flavor; those who don’t loathe his odd aftertaste, spitting him out after the first bite. Unsurprisingly, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is not Gilliam’s evangelical masterwork and will fail to convert a single critic into a devotee. It will, however, breathe fire back into the bellies of the believers with its subtle fragrance of Brazil and whimsical hints of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Virtually mocking the “advancements” of James Cameron and his ilk, the imagery and narrative of Parnassus speaks as much about good and evil as the responsibility of storytellers to literally sustain the universe with imagination. No pressure.

Read More ...

Cinemanifesto - 14 Jan 2010

Almodóvar’s vision shines brightly in Broken Embraces by Michael J. Krainak Once in the career of many independent filmmakers, they take a long look back at their oeuvre and make a movie that serves as a sort of “cinemanifesto,” which not only justifies where they’ve been, but also where they are going. Federico Fellini did this with 8 1/2, an autobiographical fantasy/nightmare about a tormented director in mid-film. So did Woody Allen with his wonderfully self-indulgent Stardust Memories, which justified the director’s determination to move beyond his “earlier, funny ones.” Even Robert Altman peaked with his brilliant The Player, an indie stance against the Hollywood studio system.

Read More ...

Never Go Full Avatar ’d - 07 Jan 2010

James Cameron and futuristic revisionist history by Ryan Syrek The volume of the near-biblical wailing and gnashing of teeth by nerd-dom after the trailer for Avatar unveiled hybrid Thundercat-Smurfs was quickly drowned out by unholy wailing and gnashing of teeth by studio execs who had shelled out $500 million. Both were soon eclipsed by the sound of writer/director/self-proclaimed-cinematic-messiah James Cameron chortling. After three weekends, Avatar is now fourth on the all-time global box office chart, trailing two sequels and a certain Titanic endeavor. It’s still Cameron’s world, bitches; we just pay him to live in it.

Read More ...

Let the Reitman In - 07 Jan 2010

Up in the Air has the director on the rise by Ryan Syrek Up in the Air is not the best movie of 2009. It is, however, the movie that best represents 2009. Like a snapshot packed in a box in the attic or a note tucked inside a time capsule, revisiting writer/director Jason Reitman’s heart-warming/heart-breaking ode to corporate downsizing will, years from now, instantly transport viewers to a time when bad economic news was the only economic news. If not for a conflicted conclusion that longs to simultaneously question and reinforce the hierarchy of personal relationships and careers, the film would have found itself in the rarest of air.

Read More ...

Running On Empty - 07 Jan 2010

The Road highlights the perils of post- apocalyptic parenting by Ben Coffman Parenthood is a rough gig. It involves carefully ushering your children through their first 18 years of life and hoping that, thereafter, they’ve learned not to stick their heads into ovens. Now imagine how much tougher your job would be if, like in The Road, people want to stick your child’s head into an oven — a situation I’m pretty sure Dr. Spock’s parenting guides never covered. The Road, adapted from Cormac McCarthy’s 2006 novel (his follow-up to No Country for Old Men), follows an unnamed father (Viggo Mortensen) and son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) as they trek through a post-apocalyptic landscape. Eight years have elapsed since a vague man-made disaster turned the sky perpetually gray (as in a nuclear winter) and killed all of the Earth’s plant life.

Read More ...

’09 Like Fine Wine - 28 Dec 2009

This year shall be fondly remembered by Ryan Syrek Like cheese, fine wine and the ex you shouldn’t have dumped, 2009 will age far better than you or me. In fact, Roger Ebert has gone so far as to claim via Twitter: “2009 is one of those magic movie years like 1939 or 1976.” Now, if Roger Clinton had said that, maybe I don’t take it seriously … but that was Roger Ebert, the godfather of modern movie criticism. How could he have known that even in our own little neck of the woods, 2009 “brought it,” to use the parlance of a fallen pop-icon turned reality singing competition judge? Indeed, Film Streams at the Ruth Sokolof Theater again delivered the cultural noise and socially significant funk, and Marcus’ Midtown Crossing Theater finally united dinner and movies into one experience after a century of date night segregation. From the local to national, if this year had done any better, we’d have to find a way to publicly tear it down.

Read More ...

<< Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next >>