The first giveaway that TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON will be a film with serious problems comes early on. In an attempt to inject President Kennedy into the film, a sub-par digital image is used. Kennedy has the unglossed appearance of a student cartoon, the eyes distinctly off, the face itself curiously ill-formed. As rotoscoping,… Read More »
BAD TEACHER
Many actresses seek to prove their acting chops by removing their makeup, frumping their wardrobes, and otherwise de-emphasizing their most glamorous assets in roles that call for them to emote high drama while being noble. In BAD TEACHER, Cameron Diaz slathers on the eyeliner and lipstick, hikes her tight skirts to dizzying heights, and wipes… Read More »
GREEN LANTERN
For a film that is based on a super hero’s ability to make anything he thinks of materialize in green glowing splendor, THE GREEN LANTERN is a film that is unusually flat in execution and uninspired in conception. It’s also painfully disjointed, as though there were a much longer, even more disappointing flick from which… Read More »
SUPER 8
It is always a delight for a film to boast fine performances of subtle nuance and palpable emotion. It is even more delightful when those Oscar-worthy performances come from actors who have not yet attained voting age. Such is the case of SUPER 8, and it is all the more important in a film that… Read More »
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, PART 2
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, PART 2 begins with a bang and doesn’t stop. Starting right where the last film ended, it barely has time to catch its breath, or go into florid exposition, before diving right into the final face-off between the boy, now man, wizard (Daniel Radcliffe), embodiment of all that is… Read More »
LARRY CROWNE
Somewhere in LARRY CROWNE, there is a darker, more robust film lurking. Fortunately, with director and co-writer Tom Hanks in the title role, rather than hopeless piffle, this lightweight bit of escapism almost takes on the grander trappings of an optimistic fable for our times. A slight one, to be sure, and certainly not one… Read More »
COWBOYS & ALIENS
COWBOYS & ALIENS is an exhilarating and stunningly successful exercise in the improbable. It trips the light fantastic ambling through idioms from classic westerns while piling on the CGI of nasty creatures from another world driving the action. In classic western tradition, the hero, Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) is a laconic loner, quick with his… Read More »
ZOOKEEPER
The annoying thing about ZOOKEEPER isnt that its a bad movie, though it is, and a very bad one at that. The annoying thing is that Kevin James in the title role is so very good. It sets up a damnably uncomfortable tug-of-war between hating the flick and yet enjoying the work that James does… Read More »
RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
Before they devolved into a campy excuse for a quick buck, THE PLANET OF THE APES franchise was a nicely rendered and clever conceit for commenting on the human condition by having apes stand in for us. RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, the prequel that explains how it all happened, is a worthy… Read More »
OUR IDIOT BROTHER
OUR IDIOT BROTHER, profane title notwithstanding, is a liltingly transcendent comedy. The humor, character-driven and smart, is pointed, but delivered compassionately. And this is perfectly in keeping with the esoteric underpinnings at play here. The eponymous character, Ned (Paul Rudd), is not so much the hero of the piece as the Holy Fool, a hippie… Read More »
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