MOVIE REVIEW
Terribly Happy (2008)

Oscilloscope Laboratories
Put
the Coen brothers in Denmark, and they might come out with a film similar to “Terribly
Happy.” An offbeat suspense thriller involving a corruptible policeman, a creepy
insular town and a giant metaphoric bog, it’s made in precisely the sort of
genre busting mode the brothers have perfected in everything from “Blood Simple”
to “No Country for Old Men.”
Continue reading "A Bad Case of the Blood Simples" »
MOVIE REVIEW
From Paris with Love (2010)

Rico Torres/Lionsgate
John Travolta descends upon “From Paris with Love” with
gale force, sweeping up all the innocuous Luc Besson action-flick chop-shop
proceedings in a torrent of flashy overacting. He’s the primary reason to spend
time with what is otherwise a standard, thoughtless shoot ’em up. The actor has
done the crazy rogue shtick before, but never with quite the mischievous gleam brought
to the character of Charlie Wax here.
Continue reading "City of Fights" »
MOVIE REVIEW
Father of My Children (2009)

The Times BFI 53rd London Film Festival
Mia Hansen-Løve’s second feature picked up the Special Jury Prize in the Un certain regard category at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, a prize that recognizes exceptional young filmmakers. With “Father of My Children,” Ms. Hansen-Løve certainly and confidently asserts herself as one such talent. Inspired by an encounter with legendary French film producer Humbert Balsan, Ms. Hansen-Løve delivers a touching, incredibly personal familial portrait that deals with artistic drive, pride, the inherent fear of failure and its tragic consequences.
Continue reading "Art Debilitates Life" »
MOVIE REVIEW
Off and Running (2010)

First Run Features
Even by the standards of
transracial modern America, Avery Klein-Cloud has had an unusual upbringing.
The African-American, Texas-born adopted daughter of two Brooklyn-dwelling
Jewish lesbians, they and her brothers Rafi (biracial) and Zay-Zay (Korean born) call their family the “United Nations.” With so many discordant
background elements at play — such a clear sense of belonging in one way while
being forever intrinsically removed in another — it comes as no surprise when
teenage Avery begins an investigation of her biological background.
Continue reading "The Born Identity Crisis" »
MOVIE REVIEW
Edge of Darkness (2010)

Melinda Sue Gordon/Warner Bros. Pictures
Revenge tragedies should be hot-blooded and cold-hearted, but "Edge of Darkness" is blanded out into something just vaguely mild. It has the curiosity value of a returning Mel Gibson — now a very strange screen presence indeed — as Boston cop Thomas Craven on the trail of his daughter's killer, but that can't hide the fact that it's a weak thriller which forgets to do much thrilling.
Continue reading "Cashing a Payback" »
MOVIE REVIEW
Horses (2010)

DCD Media
In 2004, Liz Mermin directed “The Beauty Academy of Kabul,” in which she followed a few fearless American hairdressers who decided
to empower Afghan women through cosmetology. At one point, one of the students
was asked about the future for women in her country now that the Taliban were
not in charge. The student replied something along the lines that although she
had a lovely husband herself, it was pointless to think that women would ever have
equality with men since they would never allow it. The westerners fell into a
stunned, depressed silence, and the eager-to-please student asked if she had
said the wrong thing.
After that experience, it’s no surprise that Ms. Mermin
has in her new film turned her back on people almost entirely. Filmed over a
year at an Irish racing stable, “Horses” follows the fortunes of three horses
belonging to a trainer named Paul Nolan, and explicitly identifies itself as a
documentary where the animals are the stars. For obvious reasons, this doesn’t
quite work.
Continue reading "Courses for Horses" »
MOVIE REVIEW
Creation (2009)

Liam Daniel/Newmarket Films
“Creation”
achieves the impressive feat of reducing Charles Darwin and his work to fodder
for stiff-lipped, cumbersome dramatics. It’s amazing that a story of the man
behind the most revolutionary idea in human history could feel so flat and
uninspired. But director Jon Amiel achieves the seemingly impossible by hewing to
a stock chamber-piece approach that contradicts the wholly modern, innovative
way his subject lived his life.
Continue reading "A Beautiful Mind Boggles" »
MOVIE REVIEW
Extraordinary Measures (2010)

CBS Films
“Extraordinary Measures” is not so much directed as
processed, hewing closely to the cut-and-dry inspirational template. It’s a
paste job down to the tiniest fibers of its being, with a soundtrack that
contains Eric Clapton’s “Change the World” and lots of stock preaching about
making miracles happen. The narrative effectively blends human interest with an
engaging insider’s look at the biotech bureaucracy, but laziness is the
operative mode here.
Continue reading "Clear and Present Disease" »
MOVIE REVIEW
The Tooth Fairy (2010)

Diyah Pera/20th Century Fox
For a cruddy kids’ movie-vehicle for Dwayne Johnson, “The Tooth
Fairy” required a lot of screenwriters. Apparently Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel,
Joshua Sternin, Jeffrey Ventimilia and Randy Mayem Singer were all needed to
come up with lines such as “may the tooth be with you,” “you can’t handle the
tooth” and “thank you fairy much.” Okay, I don’t actually remember the last line
in the movie, but spend enough time with puns being beaten into your brain
(what primarily passes for dialogue here) and they’ll remain there mutating like
a terrible disease.
Continue reading "Biting the Fairy Dust" »
MOVIE REVIEW
A Piece of Our Life — Kakera (2010)

ゼロ・ピクチュアズ
Haru (Hikari Mitsushima) has her own apartment and a university schedule she used to enjoy, but for the most part she is drifting. All her education should have been building up to something, but she no longer seems to know to what. Her ambivalence about her future has also infected her personal life: Her boyfriend bores her; she dresses sloppily; and when she first meets Riko (Eriko Nakamura) in the park, there’s an embarrassing incident over a tampon.
Riko still lives at home over her parents’ dry cleaners, and works for a medical company which hand-manufactures replacement body parts such as limbs, of course, but also ears and breasts. She explodes into Haru’s life like a mash note filled with confetti, but Haru is so passive that she only comes along for the ride. Their relationship is a source of happiness for both of them, but Haru can’t decide what it means to her.
Continue reading "Out On an Artificial Limb" »
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