MOVIE REVIEW
The Debt (2010)
Laurie Sparham/Focus Features
You know the awards season is officially upon us when Focus Features teams up with zombie Miramax to bring us the new film from an Oscar-nominated director that touts Oscar-pedigree British thespians playing second fiddle to up-and-comers who are supposedly their younger selves yet look nothing like them. To top it off, the movie also invokes the Holocaust. It’s so golden, it’s as if Harvey Weinstein had put it together himself. (He didn’t.)
Continue reading “Time Doesn’t Pay” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (2011)
Carolyn Johns/Miramax Films
The marketing wizards working on “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark” want you to believe that because the film is based on something that traumatized Guillermo del Toro as a child, it must be the next “Pan’s Labyrinth.” They conveniently neglect to mention that such an analogy is only possible after co-screenwriters Mr. del Toro and Matthew Robbins calculatedly changed the protagonist of “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark” from a housewife to a 9-year-old child — way to pull a fast one on the moviegoers and get them interested in a novice filmmaker’s remake of an unspectacular 1970s TV movie.
Continue reading “Tooth Will Out” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Tales From the Golden Age (2009)
IFC Films
“Tales of the Golden Age” consists of six Ceauşescu-era anecdotes told by writer-director Cristian Mungiu of the Palme d’or-winning “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” along with co-directors Ioana Uricaru, Hanno Höfer, Răzvan Mărculescu and Constantin Popescu. It begins with droll vignettes of party-mandated pageantry and progressively shifts its focus toward rebellious personal transgressions. An omnibus film like this is almost always a mixed bag, and this one is unfortunately no exception. Suffice it to say, it doesn’t come close to a historical document or a communist parable like Hungary’s “Taxidermia.”
Continue reading “Life of the Party” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Circumstance (2011)
Maryam Keshavarz/Roadside Attractions
“Circumstance” embodies everything that is wrong with American indie flicks that masquerade as foreign films. This phenomenon has persisted for at least two decades — the most notable example being the “Father Knows Best” trilogy by the Taiwan-born, New York University-educated Ang Lee. Indeed, the main offenders responsible for these pseudo-foreign films are generally nonwhite American filmmakers who exploit their ethnic heritages for professional gain. Their modus operandi usually involves transplanting a concept that is widely acceptable in the West to a foreign culture where it’s supposedly taboo. And homosexuality seems to be their favorite theme time and again — it’s the topic of Mr. Lee’s “The Wedding Banquet,” Alice Wu’s “Saving Face” and now Maryam Keshavarz’s “Circumstance.”
Continue reading “Iran Into a Stonewall” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Fright Night (2011)
Disney Enterprises
The “Fright Night” remake is scary both in terms of its terror quotient and its completely soulless assembly-line filmmaking. Screenwriter Marti Noxon, best known for her work on the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” TV series, has done a credible job updating Tom Holland’s original 1985 setup. But her screenplay is devoid of expositions, solely depending on moviegoers to fill in the blanks and connect the dots. Even after spending 106 minutes with the protagonist, Charley Brewster (Anton Yelchin), you still don’t know enough to care about him. If anything, Mr. Yelchin’s congenial presence seems contradictory to the insensitivity his role calls for.
Continue reading “The Growl Next Door” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Bellflower (2011)
Joel Hodge/2011 Sundance Film Festival
“Bellflower” is an infantile hipster fantasy about an aimless pyromaniacal gearhead with an outsized sense of entitlement. Woodrow (Evan Glodell, also the writer-director) and Aiden (Tyler Dawson) devote much of their time testing out flamethrowers and fixing up a dream ride. Recalling the trust-fund-baby art majors you know from college, they are free of practical concerns yet posture with an inauthentic air of world-weariness. In fact, the main characters here all carry out the requisites of a boho existence — such as trading a car for a motorcycle on a whim — when none of them appear to have or need a job.
Continue reading “The Toad Warrior” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Cowboys & Aliens (2011)
Zade Rosenthal/Universal Studios
The prospect of a mashup between western and sci-fi seems inspired, though not terribly original after “Firefly” and “Serenity.” So it’s somewhat mind-boggling that Hollywood has optioned the 2006 graphic novel “Cowboys & Aliens” solely for its catchy title. Indeed, the adaptation evidently bares no resemblance whatsoever to the source material. The movie leaves you wondering why the filmmakers even bothered to attempt both genres, since director Jon Favreau has exhibited utter disinterest in tropes of the western throughout the early expositions.
Continue reading “The Good, the Bad and the Extraterrestrial” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Point Blank (2010)
Magnolia Pictures
Fred Cavayé’s directorial feature debut “Anything for Her” was so primed for Hollywood that our own Alan Diment presciently predicted a remake starring Russell Crowe. But what was reportedly a slick, nail-biting thriller landed in the hands of Paul Haggis and turned into a dud called “The Next Three Days.” Its dismal performance at the box office likely meant that the American audience would never get to see the original, and that Hollywood wouldn’t jump to remake Mr. Cavayé’s next film, “Point Blank.” On the upside, the new film does have American distribution.
Continue reading “French Twist of Fate” »
MOVIE REVIEW
The Ward (2011)
Arc Entertainment
A full decade since “Ghosts of Mars,” John Carpenter’s long-awaited return to directing has attracted no fanfare at all. In fact, “The Ward” will be unceremoniously showing on a single screen in New York, as well as Los Angeles, in addition to video-on-demand. It’s a shame, because it’s scary good. Not that it’s anywhere near Mr. Carpenter’s classics such as “Halloween” or “Escape From New York.” And it’s not going to renew his relevancy the way “Scream” did for Wes Craven. But that doesn’t mean you won’t shiver throughout your subway ride home.
Continue reading “One Freaks Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Larry Crowne (2011)
Bruce Talamon/Universal Pictures
The pairing of Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts warrants some kind of all-time rom-com classic. “Charlie Wilson’s War” wasn’t it. Unfortunately, neither is “Larry Crowne” — far from it, in fact. Co-written by Mr. Hanks and Nia Vardalos, the new film recalls the most pedestrian, episodic sitcomesque qualities of the latter’s claim to fame, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.” It just leaves you wondering why Mr. Hanks — who also dons the director’s hat here — couldn’t at least call Nora Ephron in for a rewrite.
Continue reading “Set in Retrain” »