The great irony of DREDD 3D is that the narcotic driving the criminal element of the film is called Slo-Mo and its trick is to make slow time down to one-percent of normal for the user. Ironic because DREDD, based on the comic strip by Carlos Ezquerra and John Wagner, does the same thing for… Read More »
FRANKENWEENIE
Decades ago Tim Burton created a short stop-motion animated film called FRANKENWEENIE, and this tale of a boy who brings his beloved dog back to life became Mr. Burtons entrée into the world of cinema. He revisits this tale in a feature length version, the which he has directed from a screenplay that John August… Read More »
PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4
With PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4, we see the decline of a once fresh and robust franchise into something dull and predictable. Worse, with this installment, we see the franchises transition into yet another entry into the slasher genre. The tale is still told via rough cinema-verite footage from surveillance cameras and other assorted forms of home video.… Read More »
SINISTER
SINISTER has the all too rare virtue of being a horror film with a fine gloss of originality and genuine surprise to it. Rather than going for the usual assortment of jump-and-scare tactics, it broods atmospherically on the evil that humankind is capable of, and not necessarily the gruesome acts of violence on which the… Read More »
CLOUD ATLAS
CLOUD ATLAS is an ambitious film plagued with problems that garbles its overarching themes. Some of these problems stem from its makers attempting to adapt the six novellas of the original book into a film with a running time of only(?) three hours. Others are of a more puzzling nature, troublesome and unforgivable for being something… Read More »
TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN, PART 2, THE
The most persistent question about THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN 2 is why it is that the human character, the one adrift amid all the assorted vampires and werewolves, is the one who is the most engaging. That would be Charlie (Billy Burke), the father of the now undead Bella. In roughly 10 minutes of… Read More »
SKYFALL
SKYFALL may not be the best Bond film ever, but there has certainly never been a better entry in the series. The trademark mordant wit, breakneck action, and visceral eroticism are all in evidence here, and operating at their finest level, but there is a subtle yet piquant, tweaking of the usual formula that makes… Read More »
MOONRISE KINGDOM
MOONRISE KINGDOM is a piquant masterpiece that will be as fresh and as relevant 50 years from now as it is today. The ironic tone and the artificial conceit form a wry tension with the genuine sentiment at work here, forming a quintessence that parses the mystery and absurdity of the human condition with a… Read More »
PLAYING FOR KEEPS
PLAYING FOR KEEPS is a slow drip of a movie that refuses to make up its mind about what it wants to be as it circles the drain. Less than the sum of its parts, it essays the rom-com, the domestic drama, and the heartwarming personal redemption genres all at once, and manages to hit… Read More »
HYDE PARK ON HUDSON
HYDE PARK ON HUDSON is an interesting rather than a compelling film. Based on the recently discovered diaries of Daisy Stuckley, it tells the behind-the-scenes tale of her affair with Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Bill Murray), her fourth for fifth cousin depending on how its counted, during the tumultuous summer of 1939. The Great Depression is… Read More »
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