Sunday, October 9, 2011
George Clooney acts and directs in this twisting thriller.
George Clooney's "The Ides of March" is an engaging, well-acted and very entertaining political thriller that anyone who's even the slightest bit interested in politics will almost certainly enjoy. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a whole lot to say about its ostensible subject. Adapted from Beau Willimon's 2008 Broadway play "Farragut North," which was very loosely based on Howard Dean's 2004 presidential candidacy, the film is set during a crucial, contentious Democratic presidential primary in Ohio. Ryan Gosling is a young, hotshot campaign operative with a bright future, working for Pennsylvania Gov. Mike Morris (Clooney, who also directed and co-wrote the film). Gosling also ends up mixed up with an attractive young intern (Evan Rachel …
Friday, September 30, 2011
Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen lead a strong cast in a witty script with this remarkable 'dramedy' that's also based on a true story.
50/50 has made a near-great movie out of the hardest-to-thread, most oxymoronic genre imaginable – "cancer comedy." The film is a triumph, because it succeeds at being both moving and hilarious. Originally bearing the much better (but less marketable) title I'm With Cancer, 50/50 is based on the real-life experience of screenwriter Will Reiser – a friend of co-star and producer Seth Rogen. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays the Reiser role as a 27-year-old man suddenly diagnosed with a potentially deadly spinal cancer, while Rogen is his best friend. The film was shot in Seattle and directed by Jonathan Levine, who previously made the highly underrated 2008 picture The Wackness. Rogen may be the producer and biggest name, but this movie belongs …
Friday, September 23, 2011
This week, 'The Silver Screen' reviews 'Moneyball,' which shows that a movie about crunching numbers can be entertaining, as well as 'Killer Elite,' where killer leads can't overcome poor direction.
Moneyball I'll admit it—I was skeptical about the idea of a Moneyball film adaptation. When I first heard about the idea, I think I mockingly dubbed it On Base Percentage: The Movie. Sure, Michael Lewis' 2003 bestseller—about Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane and how he used proprietary statistical analysis to overcome a miniscule team payroll—is a great and important book that tells a fascinating story. Cinematic, however, is not a word that comes to mind. The Social Network proved that a movie about data-crunching and business strategy could be exciting, and Moneyball continues the tradition while updating it to baseball. It's not perfect—there are pacing issues, and it probably should have been about 15 minutes shorter—but …
Friday, September 16, 2011
After a summer of lackluster movies, 'Drive' is a welcome action gem that is sure to shine for years to come.
Drive is a rare gem, a Hollywood film that approaches a well-worn genre and brings a wholly new style and perspective to it. A thin plot is overcome by a masterful visual style, a dream cast and some truly great cinematic moments. Made by Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn from a script by Hossein Amini, Drive finds a whole new way to tell a familiar L.A. underworld tale. It's got elements of noir and '70s crime pictures, while the David Lynch influence is clear, as well. Throughout the movie, Los Angeles is photographed absolutely beautifully. Drive stars Ryan Gosling as an unnamed protagonist known only as the Driver, who holds a relatively amorphous job that involves a working as a mechanic, a Hollywood stunt driver and, by night, as …
Friday, September 9, 2011
Though the global epic starts off strong, the ending may leave the audience a little sick.
Imagine the swine flu epidemic of a few years ago, only five times more deadly and 20 times more contagious, and you have Contagion, a new Steven Soderbergh-directed medical thriller. The film, filmed all over the world at a $60 million budget, gets off to a very strong start, but eventually gets bogged down in questionable plotting and weak characterization. Featuring, among others, all three leads of The Talented Mr. Ripley—Contagion certainly isn't lacking for star power. Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow are a married couple in Minnesota, with Kate Winslet playing a Centers for Disease Control scientist, Laurence Fishburne a CDC bureaucrat, Marion Cotillard a World Health Organization official, and Jude Law an Alex Jones-like …
Friday, September 2, 2011
Much like 'Munich,' 'The Debt' engages the audience with covert-ops, but ultimately leaves them wanting more.
When I traveled to Israel in high school for a two-month education program, our instructor was a bearded, muscular Brooklyn-born badass who had served in the nation's wars and participated in numerous activities on behalf of the state of Israel in the years since. One of these, he used to say, was a stint in South America in the 1970s "hunting Nazis." He was never especially clear about whether that meant rounding up Nazis for trial or actually shooting them. The Debt, a new thriller about Israeli Mossad agents of similar era and vocation, turns on that very question. A remake of an Israeli picture of the same name—and the rare movie about Israel released stateside that in no way touches on the Arab-Israeli conflict—The Debt sports an …
Friday, August 19, 2011
The remake may be super violent, but it's also super incoherent.
The original 1982 Conan the Barbarian is perhaps best known for the line in which Arnold Schwarzenegger's Conan is asked, "What is the best in life?" He answers, "To crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentations of their women." The new 3-D remake, while not lacking for lamentations from women or anybody else, primarily concentrates on the "crush your enemies" part, with heads, eyes, noses, arms and hands being crushed or severed throughout its running time. The film ultimately fails because it can't make all of that gore in any way interesting. Billed as a more faithful adaptation of Robert E. Howard's 1930s novels than the original—and multiplying the budget fourfold—the new movie was directed by Marcus Nispel …
Friday, August 12, 2011
In this week's double-feature review, Oscar-worthy performances are seen in 'The Help,' while '30 Minutes or Less' pays homage to the 1980s.
"The Help" Review Kathryn Stockett's popular 2009 novel "The Help" arrives this week with a faithful and very affecting big-screen adaptation. It's simplistic at times, and flirts with manipulation, but it's also a deeply touching and well-acted film. Set in early 1960s Mississippi, "The Help" tells the story of African-American maids who care for the children and homes of wealthy white families, encountering horrible cruelty and racism, even a century after the Civil War and a decade after Brown v. Board of Education. Aibileen (Viola Davis) and Minny (Octavia Spencer) are the two primary maids, while the third protagonist is Skeeter (Emma Stone), a young college graduate who decides to write a book about the maids and their experiences. …
Friday, August 5, 2011
Bateman and Reynolds are fun to watch, but not so much the lewd and poorly scripted humor.
The Change Up is an utter mess of a movie, with just a hint of a mature, hilarious comedy trapped inside it. Strong performances by the two leads aren't enough to save a movie that's just plain poorly put together. A throwback to the 1987/88 period in which four different body-switching comedies were released within a few months of each other, The Change Up, directed by David Dobkin, updates the formula to the Age of Apatow. Lawyer and family man Dave (Jason Bateman) and womanizing layabout Mitch (Ryan Reynolds) are lifelong friends—despite Bateman being seven years older—who drunkenly admit to each other one night that they're jealous of one another's lives. The next morning they wake up in each other's bodies and must navigate life that …
Friday, July 29, 2011
Our reviewer takes a double feature look at a mature rom-com and a genre combination that should never have been.
Crazy, Stupid, Love is a delightful surprise. Here's a lively, well-acted, deeply honest look at love, family and romance. If you've seen a movie in the past six months, you've almost certainly seen the movie's trailer—I know I've seen it dozens of times. The movie is not only much better than the mediocre preview would indicate, but doesn't end nearly as predictably as you may have thought. Steve Carrell stars as a suburban dad whose wife (Julianne Moore) confesses in the film's first scene that she's had an affair (with co-worker Kevin Bacon) and wants to leave him. Fans of Robert Altman's Short Cuts will perhaps be disappointed to learn that this time, Moore's confession of an affair is not delivered while naked from the waist down. …
kitty gersch
2:17 am on Sunday, October 9, 2011
lousy movie. as usual george clooney walks through it. terrible acting. more ›