Studio Ghibli has taken Mary Nortons classic novel, The Borrowers and made it uniquely its own, but its done so without losing what is best in Nortons story. The adaptation by Hayao Miyazaki and Keiko Niwa may have been transferred the action to Japan, but the basic elements of loneliness, friendship, and the fragility of… Read More »
NO SUCH THING
You have to take filmmaker Hal Hartly on his own terms. His is a vision of deliberately slow pacing, and dialogue that is spare but pithy, rife with wit. As a result, his deliciously eccentric, stylized films are like no one else’s. You either love them or you hate them. It’s as simple as that.… Read More »
GHOST RIDER — SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE
There comes a moment when adapting a comic book for the screen when all those involved have to make a choice. Should there be an attempt to make a preposterous premise reasonable, or should one throw verisimilitude to the winds and just have a good time making a cheesy movie? The makers of GHOST RIDER:… Read More »
LOCKOUT
If there were a reason to see LOCKOUT, and there really isnt, it would be to savor the way Guy Pearce gleefully surrenders the last iota of credibility in exchange for whooping it up with good-natured abandon as a near-futuristic action hero. The rest of this Luc Besson-enabled collection of clichés barely registers in comparison.… Read More »
MIRROR, MIRROR
MIRROR, MIRROR is a lush and ravishing rethinking of the Snow White story with both an old-fashioned feel and a modern sensibility. Distinguished by an wickedly gleeful performance by Julia Roberts as the evil Queen despairing over her waning beauty, and that of Lily Collins as Snow White, her unwitting nemesis, which evokes both luscious… Read More »
MEN IN BLACK 3
In MEN IN BLACK 3, the tone has shifted from one of hellzapopping fun to hellzappoping fun with a dollop of sentiment. It shouldnt work, but somehow it does. Not in the least because the script has a light touch when getting serious, and because Will Smith has some serious range. The premise is time… Read More »
PROMETHEUS
Riddley Scott is one of the very few filmmakers are given the privilege of taking a second bite from the cinematic apple that was so good to them. Fewer still when the original franchise took such a nosedive as the sequels just kept coming. The franchise is Alien, and while PROMETHEUS does not want to… Read More »
SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNSTMAN
It was certainly an intriguing enough idea, even a bold one, turning the Evil Queen in SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN in the tragic hero of the piece. It smacks of Miltons re-interpretation of Lucifer in Paradise Lost. Alas, a smack is as far as it goes here. Director Rupert Sanders is no Milton, and… Read More »
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, VAMPIRE HUNTER
If you are going to re-imagine the 16th president of the United States as a vampire hunter, go big or go home. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, VAMPIRE HUNTER has chosen the former. If the book on which the film is based took a more literary stance, echoing the idioms of scholarly inquiry and historical documentation, the film… Read More »
TOTAL RECALL
TOTAL RECALL is a pleasant revisiting of Philip K. Dicks short story, I Can Remember It For You Wholesale that also, and with a whole heart, acknowledges its cinematic predecessor of the same name. While that version was plastic and kitschy, not unlike its star, Arnold Schwartzenegger, this one takes a grimmer view of a… Read More »
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