GAMER, released without the benefit of a press screening, is a big, loud mess that loses its few good ideas in a morass of convoluted storytelling that it has, sadly, confused with stylish innovation. It posits a world in the near future where gaming has lost its virtual quality. Sim-worlds are inhabited by real people… Read More »
BURMA VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
BURMA VJ is a riveting cinema verite-style documentary that uses its rough-and-tumble covert camera work to its advantage. Covering the popular uprisings in Burma in 2007 that began as a protest against the doubling of fuel prices and grew so quickly and so virulently that the oppressive military regime saw itself as being threatened by… Read More »
PIRATE RADIO
What PIRATE RADIO does that is so remarkable is to capture as closely as a film can what it was like to be a fan of rock & roll at a time when it was considered not just noise, but actual subversion. Of course, in a way it was. This music was the anthem of… Read More »
2012
With 2012 you got your big special effects, you got your overwrought melodrama, you got your colorful supporting characters, a passel of kids of varying cuteness, outrageous puns, and a plucky dog. What you got here is blockbuster of a popcorn flick that delivers on ending the world as we know it and takes a… Read More »
GENTLEMEN BRONCOS
With GENTLEMAN BRONCOS, Jared and Jerusha Hess hearken back to their maiden effort, NAPOLEAN DYNAMITE, but this is no retread. Though the theme of a loser with dreams staying true to himself and to them is the fodder, this treatment takes it in unexpected but delightfully peculiar directions. It is the celebration of pure imagination… Read More »
I LOVE YOU, BETH COOPER
I LOVE YOU, BETH COOPER is a raucous coming of age film that compresses the action into one tumultuous day and night. The day is graduation, the coming of age is done by Dennis, and the tumultuous is courtesy of the object of his longing, the eponymous Beth Cooper. It is a time fraught with… Read More »
BOONDOCK SAINTS — ALL SAINTS DAY, THE
For those who wondered what became of the MacManus brothers, Michael and Connor (Sean Patrick Flanery, Norman Reedus) and their Da (Billy Connelly after the credits rolled on THE BOONDOCK SAINTS back in 1999, there is finally a sequel, and a brash and bracing piece of work it is. Stylish, tongue-in-cheek, and audaciously operatic, it… Read More »
TWILIGHT SAGA — NEW MOON, THE
THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON is the second film version of the wildly popular “Twilight” series of books and is much less interesting than the first one. Where before there was the delight of Bella (Kristen Stewart) discovering that the deep dark secret that the brooding love of her life, Edward (Robert Pattinson) and his… Read More »
PLANET 51
PLANET 51 is a perfectly sweet film that kiddies will adore. Their adults, on the other hand, may find it more of a slog. The story is predictable, the characters are stock. Both those failings are mitigated by good, if not dazzling, animation, and a mechanical rover, cleverly named Rover, that is in the mold… Read More »
OLD DOGS
OLD DOGS has a strong cast fighting a script that is labored, stale, and obvious. That cast is led by John Travolta and Robin Williams, both of whom are no strangers to comedy, nor to miscalculations when it comes to choosing scripts. They are Charlie and Dan, pals and business partners of 30 years. While… Read More »
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