MOVIE REVIEW
Jane Eyre (2011)
Laurie Sparham/Focus Features
In a world where movies focus on outcasts in superhero outfits and the nerd is currently king, it is a pleasure to note that there is at least one real man in Hollywood: That man is named Michael Fassbender, the Irish-German leading man willing to do many things for his art. These include playing a convicted terrorist in "Hunger," an adulterer willing to sleep with his girlfriend's teenage daughter in "Fish Tank" and a Nazi hunter who looks great in a black turtleneck in "X-Men: First Class." These roles are not the obvious route to pinup status. In fact, this career trajectory seems to belong to the new Harvey Keitel rather than the new Russell Crowe. But cinemagoers of the feminine type haven't had a man's man to admire onscreen since Mr. Crowe leapt, shotgun first, through the hotel floor in "L.A. Confidential." So Mr. Fassbender's work — whatever he does — is very greatly appreciated.
Continue reading “A Sargasso Sea Change” »
MOVIE REVIEW
The Skin I Live In (2011)
José Haro/Sony Pictures Classics
“The Skin I Live In” seemingly has the key ingredients of Pedro Almodóvar’s greatest hits: sex reassignment, a crazed fugitive copulating in a tiger costume, Marisa Paredes and, most importantly, Antonio Banderas. Since packing up for Hollywood nearly two decades ago, Mr. Banderas hadn’t looked back. But in between the “Shrek,” the “Spy Kids” and the “Mask of Zorro” franchises, his career had been a blur. Unimpeded by a stumbling accent this time, Mr. Banderas delivers his finest performance in recent memory and reminds us of the world-class leading man he is.
Continue reading “The Mask of Sorrow” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Take Shelter (2011)
Sony Pictures Classics
"Take Shelter," written and directed by Jeff Nichols, is a prescient film in this time of perpetual natural disasters, as it centers around a man preparing for a storm that may or may not come. While New Yorkers boarded up windows and stockpiled canned vegetables in preparation for Hurricane Irene, Curtis LaForche (Michael Shannon) is faced with an even more fraught dilemma: Predictions of this storm stem not from the weather report, but from within his own mind. Plagued with anxiety about his family's safety while inwardly acknowledging that he may be delusional, he begins to take dramatic measures to ensure survival in the face of impending doom. The film touches on many subjects — family, mental illness, masculinity, vulnerability — but never alights on any issue with enough significance to rise above what is, essentially, schlock.
Continue reading “Weathering the Brainstorm” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Warrior (2011)
Chuck Zlotnick/Lionsgate
Shamelessly ripping off “The Fighter,” “Warrior” is also about professional brawlers, inept parenting, overcoming substance abuse and sibling rivalry: Estranged years ago by an alcoholic father (Nick Nolte) now in recovery, the two Conlon brothers, Brendan (Joel Edgerton) and Tommy (Tom Hardy), will almost inevitably meet again in an Atlantic City mixed-martial-arts cage-match event called Sparta.
Continue reading “Beat All That You Can Beat” »
MOVIE REVIEW
The Yellow Sea (2010)
Cho Won-jin/20th Century Fox
Such was the success of South Korean director Na Hong-jin’s debut, “The Chaser,” that Hollywood took notice and Fox International signed on to bankroll his next project. Despite the cash injection, Mr. Na doesn’t deviate too far from what made “The Chaser” such a hit with his follow-up picture, “The Yellow Sea.”
Sticking to the gloomy thriller genre, Mr. Na even puts faith in “The Chaser’s” two leads, casting Ha Jung-woo and Kim Yun-seok as chief protagonist Gu-nam and gangster Myun-ga respectively; and Mr. Na is richly rewarded for putting faith in the tried and tested.
Continue reading “Seoul Survivor” »
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
One Day (2011)
Giles Keyte/Focus Features
By the time “One Day,” a decades-spanning nonromance, gets around to making one of its main characters seem like an actual human, the film’s just about over. That’s a fundamental problem for filmmaker Lone Scherfig, who follows up her overrated “An Education,” and screenwriter David Nicholls, adapting his novel.
For the first two-thirds of the picture, protagonists Emma (Anne Hathaway) and Dexter (Jim Sturgess) are ciphers at the whim of a gimmicky narrative, which charts the evolution of their close friendship (and repressed romance) beginning on July 15, 1988 before continuing on the same date each successive year.
Continue reading “School of Continuing Education” »