Critic's Notebook

Forgive and Forget

MOVIE REVIEW
The Vow (2012)

By JORDAN TEICHER

Kerry Hayes/Screen Gems

Disclaimer: Nicholas Sparks had nothing to do with the production of this film. Such a warning is necessary before examining “The Vow,” because all of the movie’s marketing begs potential viewers to believe they are about to see some second coming of “The Notebook.” This type of ploy may result in financial success in the coming weeks: Valentine’s Day is close by; and the two leads — Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum — have previously succeeded in Nicholas Sparks adaptations. But, herein lies the most crucial problem with “The Vow”: The obligation to a specific target audience steers the plot into chick-flick territory that has been mechanically repeated into monotony.

Don’t Leave the Safety On

MOVIE REVIEW
Safe House (2012)

By JORDAN TEICHER

Universal Pictures

Clichés in “Safe House”: skilled C.I.A. agent gone rogue, naïve rookie agent with superb talents, bureaucratic director, gruff and mysterious senior officer, unnecessary blonde girlfriend, shaky camera, fight sequences with quick cuts, an obligatory car chase, poor character development, a double cross, a triple cross, an action-thriller without thrills, boredom.

Most of the film’s opening act focuses on the illegal trade of a high-security file in South Africa. The buyer is Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington), a rogue C.I.A. agent who is also wanted for treasonous activities in ten different countries. Frost plans to sell the ambiguous file for millions of dollars on the black market, but he is ambushed by armed men and only escapes death by turning himself in at the American embassy.

Lives Wash Up on the Wasteland

MOVIE REVIEW
Bombay Beach (2011)

By ALEX BEATTIE

Alma Har’el

The tiny settlement of Bombay Beach nestles on the eastern shore of the Salton Sea in southeastern California. It’s a fractured piece of Americana, a relic of an abortive 1950s tourism development that now lies neglected, forgotten and rapidly decaying. It’s also home to a small but eclectic posse of folk who exist very literally on the fringes of society. Confronted by death and decay at every turn, one could be forgiven for thinking this was a place shorn of hope, a haven for those who had given up on normal life. But Alma Ha’rel’s stunning documentary paints a very different and utterly beautiful picture of life lived on the edge.

Working for the Skin-Deep Trade

MOVIE REVIEW
Girl Model (2012)

By ALEX BEATTIE

Dogwoof

The dichotomous nature of the modeling industry is brutally exposed by documentarian duo David Redmon and Ashley Sabin in this stark exposé of the realities of the business. It’s a bleak and damning indictment of a trade that shatters any glamorous or aspirational illusions that may have still surrounded it, instead revealing it to be as sordid as many might have suspected.

Art of Darkness

Verve Pictures

By SARAH MANVEL

The year 2011 was probably not one that will be best remembered for its cinema. As the world swirled with upheaval, the movies we saw didn't quite manage to capture the frenetic pace of change around us. Since movies usually take about three years to make, this is not completely surprising; but it does seem a shame that so few of our artists are ahead of the times. This is also the year in which Steven Spielberg — executive producer of "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" — proclaimed his disappointment that so few truly great movies were being made these days. Darkness was one theme very visible in the year's films, usually darkness without real reason other than the director wanted to see what he could get away with. So among other things we had — spoiler alert — a father selling his child for cash ("Real Steel"), a man sleeping with his girlfriend's mother in a fit of pique ("Beautiful Lies") and — possibly worst of all — Buzz Aldrin lending credibility to Michael Bay's hard-on for space-program conspiracies (the aforementioned "Transformers"). This is very depressing. No wonder we’re not as interested any more. To top it off, when all the comedies that actually like their characters have moved to television, is it any wonder that people stay in?

Finish Line, With a Lick and a Promise

2011 Los Angeles Film Festival

By ALEX BEATTIE

I’m going to caveat my choices with this: These are probably not the 10-best films of 2011. I suspect that the list lacks much-admired critical darlings — "Drive," "Melancholia," "Margaret" and "The Artist" — but for whatever reason, these and others have passed me by; and so while risking critical castigation for neglecting them, I simply cannot pass judgment on what I have not seen. What this list is, though, is the best of what I have.

Family Viewing, Outside the Cry Room

Kino International

By JAMES ROCAROLS

A newborn in the family reduced my cinema visits to the lowest number in many years, although I did finally manage to catch up with most significant releases by the end of the year. There are a few notable exceptions, such as "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" and "Drive," and I’m yet to catch the recently released "The Artist" and "Las acasias." Looking back, I’d say it’s been a reasonably good year. Certainly it’s been a very good one for British cinema. I’m a bit disappointed not to have any out-and-out comedies on my list, but some fell just outside my top 10.

Mondo Apocalypto

Music Box Films

By TIM HAYES

I have written rude things about Kenneth Branagh, but I never wished him a term in the Marvel salt mines. His name attached to "Thor" wasn't the year's biggest directorial surprise — that was Michel Gondry's credit on "The Green Hornet," which really did seem like crossed wires — but it proved that hiring a left-field director for the current wave of fantasy films is a bit pointless, since the chances of getting a left-field film out of it are about zero. The differences between the year's comic-book movies were well worth arguing about, as long as you didn't miss that it was their similarities which were actually the point, and that the same diminishing returns as any other drug hit was part of the equation. Since 2012 brings to the screen a comic for which my 12-year-old self would have mugged my own grandmother, the next whimper you hear may be mine.

A Private Afterlife

MOVIE REVIEW
Dreams of a Life (2011)

By ALEX BEATTIE

Dogwoof

The story of Joyce Vincent (played by Zawe Ashton in re-enactments) — a woman who died alone in her North London bedsit just before Christmas 2003 and lay undiscovered until January 2006 — forms the devastatingly moving basis of Carol Morley’s superb documentary.

Fascinated by the story, Ms. Morley’s investigative determination to unravel the mystery and get to the bottom of how Vincent could seemingly slip so readily through the cracks of society actually ends up being so much more than a quest for answers.

An Icon Out of the Elementary

MOVIE REVIEW
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)

By ALAN DIMENT

Daniel Smith/Warner Brothers Pictures

The easiest way to digest “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” is to pretend that the film does not concern the exploits of fiction’s finest detective at all. If one can convince oneself that Robert Downey Jr. is playing not Sherlock, but some rough-and-tumble Victorian adventurer — Indiana Holmes perhaps — then the film can be enjoyed, much like its predecessor, as a rambunctious but somewhat shallow romp. Naturally, one might notice the odd similarity between Conan Doyle’s creation and the hero of Guy Ritchie’s film; but that is surely mere coincidence.