Jude Law is glib. Cameron Diaz is perky. Kate Winslet is tragic in a perfect serio-comic way. They’re all gorgeous. And Jack Black, well, it’s hard to say what exactly he is doing in THE HOLIDAY as the object of Winslet’s eventual attraction. Writer/director Nancy Meyers certainly can’t be accused of typecasting by injecting Black,… Read More »
FAY GRIM
FAY GRIM dances through so many levels that while one viewing is sublime, several are a giddy revelation, each one more so than the last.
VITUS
The secret life of children is fertile territory. The unsullied logic of those for whom preconceived notions and ossified received wisdom are phenomenon yet to come make for a piquant commentary on both. The innocence, the unrestrained emotion, and the intellect unfettered by the conventions of society are a potent combination in VITUS, a delightful… Read More »
NO RESERVATIONS
NO RESERVATIONS is a prime example of everything that is wrong with Hollywood remakes of terrific foreign language films. Take challenging characters, piquant situations, homogenize the high heckola out of them and, poof, everything that was wonderful in the original is gone. To be fair, even without knowing MOSTLY MARTHA, said original, there is little… Read More »
ROCKET SCIENCE
Rites of passage come in many forms, and for Hal (Reece Daniel Thompson), the game but hapless hero of ROCKET SCIENCE, that rite is pizza. Specifically, being able to overcome his stutter long enough to form the words to place the order before a lesser option is forced upon him by the bored lunch ladies… Read More »
THE JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB
At one point during THE JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB, based on the novel by Karen Joy Fowler, one member of the eponymous club watches another burst into tears and run into another room over an Austenian point. “Reading Jane Austen is a minefield” she opines, and so it is. Not because the subject matter of… Read More »
FIERCE PEOPLE
There is little in life sadder to see than a film that thinks it has a great deal to say of a revelatory or profound nature, but doesn’t. And thus is it with FIERCE PEOPLE, which stretches metaphors beyond their inherent tensile strength in order to inform its audience that the rich are different. As… Read More »
FEAST OF LOVE
After a promising beginning, FEAST OF LOVE devolves into a sloppy wallow in melodrama of the most turgid variety. It dallies with hyperbole, but refuses to commit to a conceit that might have made it all come together as a satisfying whole. Instead of magic, it is at best contrived. Morgan Freeman is our narrator.… Read More »
DAN IN REAL LIFE
DAN IN REAL LIFE is suffused with a lovely sweetness. Not cloying, not sappy, but instead, unaffectedly joyful about what life has to offer, including the madness inherent in how very messy life tends to be. Dan (Steve Carell) has been avoiding the joyful part of life. He’s spent four years as a widower, mourning his… Read More »
PS I LOVE YOU
The single biggest problem with PS I LOVE YOU is that all the supporting characters are more interesting than Holly, the main character. This is as much a function of the writing as of the relative talents involved, even though the main character is played by two-time Oscar® winner Hilary Swank. Holly is gawky, maudlin,… Read More »