MOVIE REVIEW
Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench (2009)
Variance Films
"Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench" does not know whether it wants to be French New Wave, a musical, a documentary or film noir. It may be that writer-director Damien Chazelle wanted to see if he could incorporate all of these disparate ideas and tones in a cohesive way. The answer is, sadly, no. Shot entirely in black and white, we see the story — to put it crudely — of boy gets girl; boy loses girl; boy gets girl back. It is very simple and simply done.
Continue reading “Meet Me in Boston” »
MOVIE REVIEW
The Young Victoria (2009)
Liam Daniel/Apparition
“The Young Victoria” breaks no new ground in the realm of period
pieces. It’s concerned — as have been many of its predecessors with royals as
subjects — with the burdens of monarchy such as the pressures to produce an
heir, confront complex palace intrigue and find a way to connect with the
outside world.
Yet it’s a work of high, refined craft from director Jean-Marc Vallée
and screenwriter Julian Fellowes. With an appropriate emphasis on the quieter drama beneath the magisterial splendor and Emily Blunt’s terrific, empathetic performance as Queen
Victoria, it achieves the challenging feat of making a narrative set in the
early 19th century seem wholly contemporary, without needless
stylistic quirks or anachronisms. Ms. Blunt’s performance succeeds because she makes the ultimate icon
relatable, playing the longest reigning British monarch with the vulnerability
and unease of anyone forced into a difficult position before he or she ready.
Continue reading “Victoria’s Secret” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Avatar (2009)
WETA/20th Century Fox
James Cameron doesn’t make movies. He makes events. And “Avatar,” which comes hyped with a much speculated upon budget of around $500 million and the wonders of the filmmaker’s stereoscopic 3-D camera system, is perhaps his biggest yet.
With great power comes great responsibility — as another big-budget icon noted — and great responsibility brings the weight of enormous expectations. Well, ignore the bad buzz spurred by the mediocre first trailer and forgo your cynicism. The movie works spectacularly well, providing a vibrant experience on par with those provided by the legendary blockbusters of Hollywood’s past.
Continue reading “King of the 3-D World” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Nine (2009)
David James/The Weinstein Company
“Nine,” Rob Marshall’s adaptation of the Broadway musical version of Federico Fellini’s “8 1/2,” unfolds in a strange netherworld located somewhere between its two prior forms. It takes stabs at evoking the dreamlike psychological reverie of Fellini’s masterpiece but stops dead for clunky, poorly-integrated musical numbers. The dialogue alludes to the transformative power of cinema while the picture remains aesthetically earthbound, frozen by pedestrian prettified visual compositions and blatantly artificial stagecraft that hasn’t transitioned well.
Continue reading “All That Jizz” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Invictus (2009)
Keith Bernstein/Warner Bros. Pictures
“I am the master of my fate,” reads the William Ernest Henley poem from which Clint Eastwood’s “Invictus” takes its title. “I am the captain of my soul.” Those words helped Nelson Mandela through the insane ordeal of the 27 years he spent ensconced in a tiny prison cell and they lie at the core of the tale of reconciliation Mr. Eastwood presents here.
Continue reading “All Forgiven” »
MOVIE REVIEW
[REC] 2 (2009)
Magnet Releasing
The best horror sequels never know when to pull back — It’s their greatest trait. James Cameron showed genre filmmakers how to increase the quality with 2005’s “Aliens,” technically science fiction but still embraced by lovers of extreme tension and violence. In 1986, Rob Zombie deleted the black comedy from his previous film, “House of 1,000 Corpses,” for its nihilistic, superior follow-up, “The Devil’s Rejects.” And then there was “28 Weeks Later,” a descending roller coaster that traded its predecessor’s dependence on character exposition for one dynamite set piece after another. The formula is tried and true; of course, the film itself needs to actually be good. There’s no wonder why the increasingly-gorier “Friday the 13th” sequels don’t deserve to be in the same sentence as the aforementioned pictures.
“[REC] 2,” Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza’s supercharged continuation of 2007’s already-unrelenting cinéma vérité success, carries on the exemplary part-two tradition. Its characters’ names are inconsequential; in what ferocious, highly-stylized way each will be decimated by his or her infected neighbors is the film’s preoccupation. Though, this adrenaline rush’s blatant feeding of the horror-loving beast is quite endearing. As well as beneficiary, since the sensory uppercut fired by “[REC]” is slightly lowered to a powerful jab here, the downside of back-ending a film as unexpected and devastating as Messrs. Balagueró and Plaza’s 2007 gem.
Continue reading “Fleshing Out a Horror Hit” »
MOVIE REVIEW
A Single Man (2009)
Eduard Grau/The Weinstein Company
Fashion designer Tom Ford tries his hand at filmmaking with “A Single Man,” an adaptation of Christopher Isherwood’s eponymous 1964 novel. Revolving around a middle-aged college English professor who becomes suicidal after a car accident claims his partner’s life, the film in a sense makes an even stronger case for the legalization of gay marriage than did last year’s “Milk.” But whereas Gus Van Sant’s biopic was an impassioned plea for equality, Mr. Ford’s melodrama makes you long for that one true love that seems to elude most mortal souls.
Continue reading “Strong Suit for Gay Marriage” »
MOVIE REVIEW
The Lovely Bones (2009)
DreamWorks Studios
Doubt Peter Jackson’s cinematic instincts at your peril. His credentials have been well established throughout a career in which he’s demonstrated mastery of a range of subjects and styles both large (“Lord of the Rings”) and small (micro-budget B pictures such as “Dead Alive”). Yet those instincts fail him in his adaptation of the acclaimed Alice Sebold novel “The Lovely Bones.”
Continue reading “Laying Vengeance to Rest” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Morphia (2008)
The Times BFI 53rd London Film Festival
"Morphia" is the most nihilistic moviegoing experience possible, which is meant as a supreme compliment. It's based on the autobiographical stories of Mikhail Bulgakov, whose most famous work, "The Master and Margarita," is about the devil coming to 1920s Moscow. In this film though the young Dr. Polyakov (Leonid Bichevin) is in a remote rural hospital in 1917, and the devil is morphine.
Continue reading “Just What the Doctor Disordered” »
MOVIE REVIEW
His & Hers (2009)
The Times BFI 53rd London Film Festival
The movie's gimmick is very simple. Women are filmed in their homes, talking about the men in their lives. But a little more thought has gone into "His & Hers;" the movie begins with a diapered infant being laid down on a layette, and ends with the shot of an elderly woman sitting alone in a home. In between the women featured go up incrementally in age from the first child interviewed — aged about seven — to elderly women who still live on their own.
Continue reading “Irish Springs of Life” »