MOVIE REVIEW
Last Vegas (2013)
Chuck Zlotnick/CBS Films
With Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Kline as best pals gathering in Sin City for a bachelor party, “Last Vegas” has been dubbed “The Hangover” for the sexagenarian set. But anyone actually expecting amnesiac high jinks and excessive debauchery will be in for a big disappointment. The film is about as exciting and hilarious as watching a busload of seniors from the home take a field trip to church, then stop by Olive Garden to take advantage of its unlimited soup, salad and bread sticks before an afternoon at the bingo parlor. But unexpectedly, “Last Vegas” turns out to be a pretty moving drama about the price one pays for lifelong friendships.
Continue reading “Off Their Rockers, but Not Hung Over” »
MOVIE REVIEW
The Complex (2013)
2013「クロユリ団地」製作委員会
Presumably by choice, "The Complex" finds Hideo Nakata retrenching so firmly onto more comfortable territory after the misfire of "Chatroom" that the whole enterprise seems distressingly familiar. Mr. Nakata had a big hand in forging a flavor of J-horror with solid international appeal when he made "Ringu" back in 1998; but that tone and style (and visual shorthand, and volume level) have become a rigid template, and "The Complex" opts not to rock the boat. Rigidity also brings the risk of incidental humor: This film features the most useless screen exorcism ever, a protracted ceremony of wailing, chanting and food preparation that produces no discernible reaction from the evil spirit infesting a haunted apartment building, but which could easily prize a guffaw from an audience.
Continue reading “Loath Thy Neighbor” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Breathe In (2013)
2013 Sundance Film Festival
Male midlife crises don't come much more photogenic and tastefully shot than the one endured by music teacher Keith (Guy Pearce) in Drake Doremus's "Breathe In," a film of quiet pastoral anguish that almost entirely does without the loud urban variety. Barring a certain amount of crockery damage and tearful car-driving toward the end, Mr. Doremus keeps the nature of Keith's wandering eye nicely understated, a 17-year itch with roots lying further back than the audience can see. In the absence of explanatory shouting, the air is filled instead with tasteful silences, classical cello and the frequent sighs of Guy.
Continue reading “The Music Lovers” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Monsters University (2013)
Disney/Pixar
Caveat: This review of “Monsters University” will spare no spoilers. These are ultimately immaterial to your enjoyment, but by all means read no further if you do not wish to be spoiled. Alonso Duralde over at The Wrap very aptly compares the film with “The Internship,” and that comparison is not as far-fetched as one might think. The two aren’t almost identical, say, the way that “Olympus Has Fallen” and “White House Down” are: “Monsters University” is naturally far superior just as one would expect from anything by Pixar. If nothing else, it’s actually hilarious whereas “The Internship” was not. Nevertheless, both films involve a lovable odd couple rallying a squad of misfits through a series of obstacles in hopes of attaining the holy grail — in the case of “Monsters University,” seats in the prestigious scare class as opposed to lucrative full-time gigs at Google.
Continue reading “Internship for Credit” »
MOVIE REVIEW
White House Down (2013)
Reiner Bajo/Columbia Pictures
First things first: Is “White House Down” essentially the same movie as “Olympus Has Fallen”? The answer is a resounding yes. Here you have Channing Tatum standing in for Gerard Butler as the unlikely (read: non-Secret Service) saver of the day. Then you have Jamie Foxx stepping into the Aaron Eckhart role of the incorruptible president of the United States. Richard Jenkins is the Morgan Freeman House speaker/acting president. As Mr. Tatum’s daughter, Joey King here functions as the adolescent liability much like the president’s son in “Olympus” played by Finley Jacobsen.
Beyond the two films’ obviously shared premise of a White House under siege, their villains are similarly motivated by the prospect of controlling America’s nuclear arsenal. Then again, both are basically “Die Hard” set inside the White House, so it’s not like “Olympus” could lay claim to originality just for hitting the multiplexes three months earlier. The most pronounced difference between the two movies is a political one: Whereas the antagonists in “Olympus” were North Koreans, in “White House Down” they are radical right-wingers, racist zealots, wanton hackers, cracked soldiers and the entire military industrial complex at large. So which of the two you would find more enjoyable is dependent entirely on whether you’re a hardcore xenophobe or a hardcore liberal.
Continue reading “Olympus Has Fallen Into Habit” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Byzantium (2013)
Patrick Redmond/Studiocanal
Neil Jordan's taste for merging Celtic blood lust with languid fairy tales has sparked life into supernatural stories before, especially the sprawling canvas and drenching atmosphere of "Interview With the Vampire" nearly two decades ago. "Byzantium" works on a smaller scale. It's at least as interested in the position of women in both civilian and secret societies as it is in the consequences of immortality, and concludes that life is no picnic in either camp. Livened up more than strictly necessary by Mr. Jordan's eye for detail and the endlessly fascinating face of Saoirse Ronan, "Byzantium" holds its own against the expectations raised by this director returning to this particular arena, as well as the inconvenient fact that vampires have been overexposed to death on screens large and small since he was last here.
Continue reading “The Dying Game” »
MOVIE REVIEW
The Purge (2013)
Daniel McFadden/Universal Pictures
Arriving a bit late to the already swinging eat-the-rich party, James DeMonaco’s “The Purge” has a go at tying economic unfairness, class war, home invasion movies and the Tea Party together into a big satirical whole. But the United States has been on the cinematic analyst’s couch forever, and Mr. DeMonaco picks metaphors that are already worn smooth. Even smoother are the mechanics of the modern horror film, which “The Purge” embraces completely for long stretches of characters peering around corners in the dark and yelping at unexpected reflections in mirrors, before they set about each other with axes. The only slightly surprising subtext to find in such company is one the trailers have studiously avoided; not at all coincidentally, it’s the one that’s authentically conservative.
Continue reading “Helter Skelter” »
MOVIE REVIEW
This Is the End (2013)
Suzanne Hanover/
Columbia Pictures
When two Jewish filmmakers decide to make a comedy based on the biblical Judgment Day, questions about their motives naturally arise. After all, this isn’t nearly as benign as Barbra Streisand recording a couple of Christmas albums. While comedy in any form has often been a taboo-slinging free-for-all, what Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg are attempting with “This Is the End” could easily be perceived as sacrilegious. On the flip side, they could be accused of heresy if they were outright singing the Christian gospel.
Continue reading “Flirting During Disaster” »
MOVIE REVIEW
World War Z (2013)
Jaap Buitendijk/Paramount Pictures
The movie adaptation of Max Brooks’s “World War Z” has lowered expectations time and again. For starters, Hollywood’s indisputably most overrated director, Marc Forster — fresh off ruining James Bond for everyone — was attached to the project. Extensive rewrites and reshoots then followed, resulting in a bloated budget and a yearlong delay. All indications were that it would turn out terrible, so it’s a relief that the film is even remotely watchable. This is not to say “World War Z” isn’t the embodiment of filmmaking-by-committee of the worst kind. In fact, it is pretty much the cinematic equivalent of a zombie: brain-dead, soulless and merely going through the epileptic motions.
Continue reading “Nighness of the Moviemaking Dead” »
MOVIE REVIEW
The Hangover Part III (2013)
Melinda Sue Gordon/Warner Brothers Pictures
According to the tagline, there’s no wedding and no bachelor party — which means there is no point.
O.K., there is a point; but it’s not to make a riotous comedy. Instead, "The Hangover Part III" is a heist movie, where Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms) and Alan (Zach Galifianakis) must join forces with Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong) to steal $21 million worth of gold bars from a big fancy house in the hills above Tijuana. If they don’t, an angry drug kingpin (John Goodman) will shoot Doug (Justin Bartha). They have three days!
Continue reading “Another Hair of the Dog” »