There’s really no way around the blatant awfulness and stupidity of Tron Legacy. Apologists may fashion an array of defenses to shield it from criticism, which is fine and all except that this kind of picture is indefensible. From all angles, it’s a mess; it’s bloated but explains far too little, it’s an action spectacle … Continue reading
Can we really associate mumblecore to indie filmmaking any longer and remain completely honest after 2010’s Cyrus? While the movement-essential Duplass brothers, Mark and Jay, don’t relinquish the personality and character of the cinema that they champion, they do work with a cast that strikes a watermark far, far above what past entries in their … Continue reading
Who knew radical fundamentalist terrorism could be so hilarious? Chris Morris, the twisted and brilliant mind behind 2010’s Four Lions, came to that exact realization himself and put his ideas to celluloid with a tale of utterly incompetent homegrown Jihadists conspiring to carry out an attack in London. If at a glance the film’s premise … Continue reading
For all of its moving excellence, The Illusionist may be almost as enrapturing for the turmoil surrounding its creation as it is for its artistry. Two arguments, one originating from writer Jacques Tatischeff (from here on out referred to affectionately as “Tati”) family and the other from director Sylvain Chomest (of 2003’s The Triplets of … Continue reading
True Grit— via the Coen brothers– represents a landmark in the oeuvre of Ethan and Larry as the first pure genre movie they’ve attempted together. Even Blood Simple only dabbles in genre cinema; True Grit on the other hand can (and arguably should) be treated and appreciated as an uncomplicated and honest contemporary Western movie. … Continue reading
I doubt very much that either Glenn Ficarra or John Requa hoped that pity would define any critical responses to I Love Phillip Morris, and if I’m being honest, then I’ll admit freely that I had no expectation to that effect, either. Yet even before the credits started to roll I felt sorry for the … Continue reading
Did we need a Saved! for the Facebook and Twitter generation? If Easy A gets remembered for anything apart from Emma Stone’s excellent performance, as well as the supporting turns by Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson, it will be for the social networking metaphor the film presents in the alacrity with which the lies and … Continue reading
Taking an everyperson– that’s an everyman or an everywoman for you PC types out there– and throwing them into an extraordinary circumstance can provide a path to success in storytelling if the person spinning the yarn knows what they’re doing. In a way, I think we respond more to the everyperson than we do to … Continue reading
Walking away from Lisa Cholodenko’s latest effort, the curiously titled The Kids Are All Right, I felt myself being pulled in multiple directions by its varying incongruities and opaque intentions. This is a confused film, a film unsure of exactly whose story it wants to tell and greatly confused over the message it’s supposed to … Continue reading
What makes the efforts of one director superior to those of another? If one person wins Best Director, does it stand to reason that they should also win Best Picture? I had these two questions– and sub-questions pertaining to both, as well as variations on each of said questions– rolling around in my head after … Continue reading
I didn’t know a whole lot about Joan Jett, Cherie Currie, Kim Fowley, or, well, any character involved when going into Floria Sigismondi’s biopic about the 1970s all-girl punk rock band, The Runaways. Unfortunately, I didn’t know much more about them coming out of it, either. Films in general, and biopics and documentaries in particular, … Continue reading
Black Swan could almost be called The Wrestler 2 despite not featuring strapping, muscle-bound men in tights and torn jeans beating each other with their fists and the occasional piece of hardware in bouts with predetermined outcomes; Darren Aronofsky here uses the lens of ballet to continue examining the lengths performance artists will go to, … Continue reading
Early America was a remarkable place, unique as the one nation where people from all around the world could come together and be called equal. The color of one’s skin, one’s native language, and one’s economic status didn’t matter. Once you arrived in America, it made no difference, because in America everyone was treated the … Continue reading
If there existed a “Best Debut” category at any of the self-aggrandizing awards shows which infect popular consciousness during the winter months of the year, then David Michôd would be a shoe-in. His very first feature, Animal Kingdom, isn’t ostentatious or glitzy; it’s far too self-assured to rely on gimmicks, adroitly made with the confidence … Continue reading
It’s that time of year (hey, at least it’s closer to that time of year than I was last January)– time for me to pontificate about which films released in 2010 tickled my fancy enough to be worthy of placement on my top ten list. I had a rough time with this year, personally; I’m … Continue reading
Tom Hooper’s critical darling The King’s Speech could have been made strictly as a breezy piece of crowd-pleasing art house entertainment, light, airy, and ultimately forgettable, and it still would have been worth seeing. Alternately it could have been approached explicitly as a period drama intent on examining the speech impediment of the man who … Continue reading
There’s an argument out there somewhere stating that in the last ten years, film noir has enjoyed something of a revival with the release of films like Memento, Oldboy, and most notably Brick, and maybe there’s some validity to that claim. But film noir as a genre never died out; it just lost a lot … Continue reading
How much of Exit Through the Gift Shop is true? Inevitably and for many, this question is the primary point of interest in discussions of the enigmatic Banksy‘s documentary about street art, in a broad sense, and more specifically his interactions with Thierry Guetta. In point of fact, popular theory supposes that Exit Through the … Continue reading
The end has come, but not really so much at all, no. Seeing the first half of the two-part finale to the Harry Potter saga, I can fully appreciate the artistic need to break the book apart; even more, I can better admire J.K. Rowling’s gargantuan, overstuffed seventh novel and the scope of both the … Continue reading
Calling a movie like Made in Dagenham predictable makes me sound incompetent. Of course it’s predictable. It’s based on something that actually happened, the outcome of which I’m well aware. (Titanic was predictable, too. The ship sank at the end! How tragic!) Be that as it may, predictable is exactly what Made in Dagenham is– … Continue reading
