MOVIE REVIEW
Iron Man 3 (2013)
Zade Rosenthal/Marvel
At some point in any hero's journey, the past will come back to haunt him or her, and so it is with Tony Stark a k a Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.). His past mistake is Aldrich Killian, a slithering Guy Pearce as an ambitious genetic engineer who wants to form a partnership with Stark. Of course Tony Stark snubs him, and the seeds are planted for revenge years later.
Into the picture steps a global uber-terrorist known only as the Mandarin, played with delicious delight by Sir Ben Kingsley, who is clearly enjoying himself in the role. Stark's world is quite literally torn apart, and he begins his road to redemption and his own revenge.
Continue reading “Overruled With an Iron Fist” »
MOVIE REVIEW
The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2013)
Ishaan Nair/IFC Films
Mira Nair's latest film, "The Reluctant Fundamentalist," is an investigation into Americanness wrapped in the veneer of a brash thriller, and — given recent events in domestic terrorism — eerily timely. Based on Mohsin Hamid's book of the same name, the story focuses on Changez (Riz Ahmed), a young man who is implicated in a high-profile kidnapping in Pakistan. Through conversations with a journalist, Changez retraces the steps that have led him from a sleek financial firm in New York to a radical professorship in Lahore. Jumping between moments of classic suspense and romance, Ms. Nair zeroes in on post-9/11 racism and its potentially radicalizing effects, namely on young men who feel increasingly alienated from the American dream — whatever that may be.
Continue reading “Scorn in the U.S.A.” »
MOVIE REVIEW
All Is Bright (2013)
Niko Tavernise/2013 Tribeca Film Festival
Phil Morrison made an auspicious directorial debut in 2005 with “Junebug.” Eschewing easy stereotypes, it masterfully painted a portrait of a sleepy American South haunted by a painful legacy and its people’s resignation to lives unfulfilled. The film also garnered the then-unknown Amy Adams an Oscar nomination and propelled her to overnight stardom. Given the eight years in between, expectations are naturally high for Mr. Morrison’s sophomore effort, “All Is Bright.” Regrettably, it falls short in every way imaginable.
Continue reading “The French-Canadian Connection” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Prince Avalanche (2013)
Scott Gardner/2013 Sundance Film Festival
David Gordon Green’s recent mainstream oeuvre has resulted in one hit (“Pineapple Express”) and two duds (“Your Highness” and “The Sitter”), in both the commercial and the critical senses. So a return to his indie roots would appear to be a welcome development for a director who initially carved his reputation out of the Malick-esque “George Washington.” But upon closer examination his latest, “Prince Avalanche,” is not unlike a bromance straight out of the Apatow clique that Mr. Green has ingratiated himself with via collaborations with Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill. But then you discover “Prince Avalanche” is actually just a remake of the 2011 Icelandic film “Either Way” by Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson, and you wonder if Mr. Green could sink any further.
Continue reading “All the Real Bros” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Before Midnight (2013)
Despina Spyrou/Sony Pictures Classics
In “Before Midnight,” Richard Linklater unites us with Ethan Hawke’s Jesse and Julie Delpy’s Céline for a third time. The pair’s meet-cute in 1995 on a Vienna-bound train was at the heart of “Before Sunrise.” Their fateful reunion in 2004 Paris was the basis of “Before Sunset.” This time, they are a couple with twin daughters in tow vacationing at a writer’s retreat in Messenia, Greece. The new film proceeds to examine domestic roles, fidelity, mortality and this thing called love.
Continue reading “Charming the Third Time” »
MOVIE REVIEW
At Any Price (2013)
Hooman Bahrani/Sony Pictures Classics
Ramin Bahrani’s last three films — namely “Man Push Cart,” “Chop Shop” and “Goodbye Solo” — followed the plights of outcasts such as immigrants and street orphans. While the first two took place in gritty New York City, the latter was set in his native Winston-Salem, N.C. So even though the Iowa cornfield setting in Mr. Bahrani’s latest, “At Any Price,” might come as no surprise, the film’s thoroughly white-bred concerns still mark a huge departure for the filmmaker.
Continue reading “Out of Left Fields” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Oblivion (2013)
David James/Universal Pictures
If you filleted out all the bits drawn from other science-fiction stories and post-apocalypse fables, there wouldn't be much left of "Oblivion" except a hollow shell of pure design theory and a vague hint of new-car smell. But at least its design has some theories worth gazing at. In a plot teeming with so many familiar threads that it eventually short-circuits rather than untangle itself, the vividly antiseptic living-pods and sky-castles and bubble-ships that Joseph Kosinski and his design wizards concoct have a stronger identity than the flesh-and-blood individuals inside them. So too does the soundscape, an aural soup of machine language and data traffic that isn't the only echo on offer of young George Lucas and "THX 1138." Watching "Oblivion" with your fingers in your ears gets more tempting as the film goes on, but you'd miss some of the best bits.
Continue reading “Respect the Architect” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Simon Killer (2013)
Joe Anderson/IFC Films
We all know the major film studios have a habit of making serious and costly blunders when choosing film titles from time to time, often falling into the trap of needlessly prioritizing originality over suitability — "John Carter" and "The Adjustment Bureau" are two recent examples that come to mind. But are indie studios guilty of doing the opposite: jazzing up their titles in an attempt to grab a larger share of the market? Recent British releases "Monsters" and "Tyrannosaur" have been accused of misleading titles and/or marketing campaigns.
I couldn’t help feeling this was an issue with "Simon Killer," a film which I viewed almost completely cold, knowing next to nothing about its contents. The title conjures up the notion that it’s about an everyday man with whom the audience is comfortable enough to be on first-name terms, but who’s harboring a deadly homicidal intent — think of similarly titled films like "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer" or the lesser known "Tony." Without wanting to give any spoilers away, I can confirm that "Simon Killer" doesn’t fit into the same category as those films. As a result of these expectations, my viewing of the film was slightly skewed as I was constantly expecting worse from our titular character than he delivered, projecting my unconscious desires for a cacophony of onscreen carnage, no doubt.
Continue reading “Antisocial Studies” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Trance (2013)
Fox Searchlight Pictures
Danny Boyle's new film circles back over some of the same territory he claimed nearly two decades ago, when his first movies dug under the skin of Britain and found that aspiration was the root of most evil while small-time crooks lived by their wits even when they had none. But in "Trance" things have changed, in every department. The criminals are now sharply suited slimeballs living in palatial splendor – bankers in all but occupation – while Mr. Boyle's film making has been ramped up for the occasion into a high style, a blazing sugar rush of digital camera work, Dutch angles and interior neon. And the director himself has been through an Olympian transformation, a wonderfully unexpected chain of events leaving the man who made "Trainspotting" installed as his country's national treasure on a tide of goodwill, Morale-Booster General by royal appointment.
In truth, "Trance" feels like the work of a man affected by his exertions elsewhere. The storyline is a tricksy, squirming nest of vipers, involving James McAvoy as a man with amnesia who can't remember where he hid a stolen painting, and Vincent Cassel as the nasty London criminal who badly wants him to remember. The criminal sets the amnesiac up with Rosario Dawson's hypnotist to try and unblock Mr. McAvoy's pipes, and after that the twists pile up. Mr. Boyle has dropped the name of Nicolas Roeg in connection with "Trance's" interlocked flashbacks and contradictory points of view; but really what we have here is just a serious case of unreliable narrators, a much less bitter pill than Mr. Roeg's medicine.
Continue reading “The Mentalists” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Evil Dead (2013)
TriStar Pictures
Sam Raimi’s 1981 picture, “The Evil Dead,” is rightly regarded as a classic of the horror genre: a pitch-perfect, no-budget thrill ride suffused with terror yet tinged with knowing humor. Fede Alvarez’s “Evil Dead” is less a remake or sequel and more of homage to Mr. Raimi’s pioneering spirit and in fact to horror as a whole. Given the nature of this beast, it is wholly derivative; yet the fact that it still delivers what feels like a fresh take on a genre that has veered toward either torture or the paranormal in recent years is welcome and — in these meta, post-“The Cabin in the Woods” times — that is an impressive feat in itself.
Continue reading “Circle of Hellish Friends” »