MOVIE REVIEW
Every Little Step (2008)
Paul Kolnik/Sony Pictures Classics
Generations of dreamers have flocked to New York City, lured by promises of fame and fortune and the chance to make it big. “A Chorus Line” translated its celebration of a group of Broadway aspirants into multiple Tony Awards and a record breaking run. Similarly “Every Little Step,” a documentary that chronicles the casting of the show’s recent revival, candidly reveals the hopes and fears experienced by the men and women facing the imposing odds of auditioning for a Broadway show.
Continue reading “One Singular Sensation Revisited” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Is Anybody There? (2009)
Nick Wall/Big Beach Films
“Is Anybody There?,” the latest in a long line of painstakingly sweet British coming-of-age stories, features the requisite elements of such a cinematic production. Peter Harness’s screenplay showcases distant parents, a wide-eyed, curious adolescent, an oddball setting and a surly older father figure. Director John Crowley gives the material a tone that oscillates between humor and sadness, and the heavenly clouds that gather over the seaside setting ideally suit the narrative’s evocation of the major stages in the circle of life.
Continue reading “Curious Case of Friendship that Transcends Age” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Anvil! The Story of Anvil (2009)
Brent J. Craig/Anvil! The Story of Anvil
“Anvil! The Story of Anvil” documents the tragicomic story of Anvil, the band of Canadian heavy metal rockers that showed some promise in the 1980s before lapsing into relative obscurity. In the best tradition of such ventures, however, it’s really about much more. The film is not a musical hagiography, or an apologia for the band and its commercial failings. It is instead a hopeful testament to the power of unrelenting optimism and the contentment that can come from refining the definition of success.
Continue reading “Setting Off the Heavy Metal Detector” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Lymelife (2009)
Screen Media Films
If there’s one type of movie that immediately comes to mind when one thinks of Sundance, where “Lymelife” played after premiering at Toronto, it’s a quirky dysfunctional family drama set in the suburbs. It’s a testament to the quality of the craft of “Lymelife” that it works well despite rigidly adhering to the template.
Continue reading “Love in the Time of Lyme Disease” »
MOVIE REVIEW
The Escapist (2008)
Vertigo Films
The opening shots of “The Escapist” provide an intriguing study in the ways those elements serve as a compacted distillation of the filmmaking interests borne out over the course of a feature. The film begins with Frank Perry (Brian Cox) sitting alone, a serious, concerned look affixed to his face as darkness shrouds him and Leonard Cohen plays on the soundtrack. It’s an introspective, peaceful moment that jarringly contrasts with the film’s next sequence, in which the title is introduced in large letters that fill the screen as we join, in process, the prison escape around which the narrative centers.
Continue reading “Shaking Off the Shackles of Convention” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Adventureland (2009)
Abbot Genser/Miramax Films
The 1980s, though steadily receding into history, still remain the most fertile setting for angst-ridden coming-of-age stories on the big screen. The semi-autobiographical “Adventureland,” from writer-director Greg Mottola, brings forth many of the traits commonly associated with John Hughes and the Brat Pack in a period piece that makes up for its lack of dramatic heft with small moments filled with nostalgia and warmth. This isn’t the broad comedy seemingly promised by the trailers and “Superbad,” Mr. Mottola’s previous film, but a distilled dramatization of one of those youthful summers one remembers forever.
Continue reading “The Vacation Not Taken” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Alien Trespass (2009)
Roadside Attractions
There have been frequent cinematic tributes to the sci-fi classics of the 1950s, the golden age of B moviemaking. “Mars Attacks,” “Tremors" and a lot of other films have replicated the look and feel of movies like “It Came from Outer Space" and "The Day the Earth Stood Still." None, however, have done so with quite the painstaking affection director R. W. Goodwin bestows on the genre in “Alien Trespass.”
Continue reading “The Decade Science Fiction Stood Still” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Fast & Furious (2009)
Jaimie Trueblood/Universal Pictures
“Fast & Furious,” the fourth picture in the car-fetishizing quadrilogy begun with 2001's “The Fast and the Furious,” inspires some interesting questions. For example: What changes in the audience’s response to a movie, and what does it signify, when all that separates a film from its predecessor is the absence of “the” in the title? What are we to make of the implication that Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker), reunited at last, are now simply fast and furious instead of “the fast” and “the furious?”
Continue reading “With Careers Stalled, Restarting a Franchise’s Engine” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Monsters vs. Aliens (2009)
DreamWorks Animation
The DreamWorks Animation product “Monsters vs. Aliens” occasionally flirts with Pixar levels of brilliance before resigning itself to more tempered goals. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. The unquestioned brand leader’s knack for melding technical excellence with complex, literate storytelling cannot be easily replicated. A movie like this one, which ably disguises its conventional kids’ fare premise in a clever satiric shell, deserves admiration even if it never reaches comparably artful heights.
Continue reading “Close Encounters in the Third Dimension” »
MOVIE REVIEW
American Swing (2009)
Magnolia Pictures
Jon Hart and Matthew Kaufman have chosen a fertile subject for a documentary in Plato’s Retreat, the famed late 1970s New York swingers' club that emerged towards the end of the era of sexual innocence and couldn’t survive its downfall. More than a haven for the erotically minded, Plato’s captured the zeitgeist in no uncertain terms. It translated the downtrodden distrust rampant in the post-Vietnam, post-Watergate period into a hopeful vision of a sort of communal utopia.
Continue reading “Dives for Swingin’ Lovers” »