RICHARD JEWELL certainly has the makings of a compelling, infuriating cautionary tale about the abuse of power, but Clint Eastwood’s homage to the common man chooses instead to be a screed against ambitious women and government agents at the mercy of their hormones. Everything that ensues after Jewell finds a bomb planted at Centennial Part… Read More »
TAMMY
There is a reason that the trailers for TAMMY show star/co-writer/co-producer Melissa McCarthy at her manic best. Those are, without doubt, the best moments of the film. Its not that McCarthy isnt equally adept at a poignant sort of drama, with which TAMMY is, unfortunately, rife. I have no doubt that one day McCarthy will… Read More »
ABOUT SCHMIDT
With ABOUT SCHMIDT, Alexander Payne fixes the same acute eye he used in both CITIZEN RUTH and ELECTION to once again rip the façade of wholesome gentility from the upper middle class of the heartland of America and to show us the savagery beneath. Again Payne has chosen the milieu Nebraska, the home of the… Read More »
LITTLE BLACK BOOK
LITTLE BLACK BOOK was a pleasant surprise, expecting as I was another mindless bit of drivel highlighted by obvious jokes and a pedestrian script. Now, I dont want to oversell it, but it is with great relief that I report that what started out as a forgettable bit of fluff gradually turned into something a… Read More »
FAILURE TO LAUNCH
There is one wildly funny sequence in FAILURE TO LAUNCH, an otherwise pallid and predictable slog. That it features the supporting players and a bird rather than stars Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew McConaughey is emblematic of where this film went so very, very wrong. Parker plays Paula, a professional interventionist hired by concerned parents… Read More »
THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (2008)
There are many reasons for the temptation to remake a classic. There is the one about updating the theme to make it relevant to current events. There is the one about being able to do thematically or visually what one couldn’t have done in a previous era. There is the one about taking a known… Read More »