MOVIE REVIEW
The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009)
Rico Torres/Columbia Pictures
“The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3” is similar to the cinematic version of a greatest-hits album, perfectly calibrated for the summer movie season. It features big stars and an established director doing exactly what they normally do, and doing it well.
The film pits John Travolta and Denzel Washington against one another as, stop me if you’ve heard this before, a maniacal villain and a suave hero respectively, while director Tony Scott (“Man on Fire,” “Domino”) amps up the action with assorted stylistic flourishes. That it works so well testifies to the skills of the principal figures and the continued potency of the mano-a-mano premise.
Continue reading “With Fare Hikes and Service Cuts Looming, M.T.A. Riders Take Another Hit” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Moon (2009)
Mark Tille/Sony Pictures Classics
Sam Rockwell faces an enormous challenge in “Moon,” an existential science-fiction drama from Duncan Jones (better known as Zowie Bowie), son of Ziggy Stardust himself. The actor plays Sam Bell, a futuristic astronaut completing a three-year stint living alone on a lunar base, working to mine the moon of clean energy for a giant corporation. Remarkably, aside from the occasional flashback, there’s not a single other character in the movie save for a robot named Gerty (voiced by Kevin Spacey), until another Sam Bell (also played by Mr. Rockwell) shows up.
Continue reading “The Year We Made No Contact” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Away We Go (2009)
François Duhamel/Focus Features
“Away We Go,” which Sam Mendes shot while in post-production on “Revolutionary Road,” is the first movie he’s made that openly engages with the vagaries of contemporary life. It’s not a hyper-stylized, heightened museum piece like its predecessor or a whip-smart satire like “American Beauty,” but a film straight from the heart of screenwriters and acclaimed authors Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida. The movie palpably evokes the feelings, concerns and challenges confronting parents and homeowners seeking to live out the American dream in the 21st century.
Continue reading “Road to Parturition” »
MOVIE REVIEW
The Hangover (2009)
Frank Masi/Warner Bros. Pictures
Lots of comically gruesome things happen in “The Hangover,” a cautionary tale about the dangers of bachelor-party debauchery spun out of control, but the movie presents them with such cheerful eloquence it’s impossible to have anything less than a great time. The casting of Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis as the leads has a lot to do with that.
Continue reading “Amnesia Is What You Get for Waking Up in Vegas” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Anything for Her (2008)
Mars Distribution
The writer and director Fred Cavayé is not a man given to idle dawdling. Within 10 minutes of setting up the perfect Parisian lives of his lead characters in “Anything for Her,” he swiftly tears them apart by having the gendarmes come crashing through their apartment door. Up to this point, the couple – mild-mannered teacher Julien (Vincent Lindon) and his beautiful wife Lisa (Diane Kruger) – were blissfully happy. In spite of having a three-year-old son, they find the time and energy to make love with the enthusiasm of a pair of adolescents but with decidedly more panache. Well, they are French after all.
Continue reading “Love and Habeas” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Pressure Cooker (2009)
Los Angeles Film Festival
Movies often inflate the significance of the high-school experience. Typically, they’ll characterize the four years as the high time of life, a carefree collection of cliques, parties, sports, pretty girls, handsome boys and adult figures both memorable and dull. Sometimes, however, in the right context certain of the formula’s oft-repeated elements ring true. “Pressure Cooker,” a new documentary from Jennifer Grausman and Mark Becker, co-opts the inspirational-teacher-changes-her-students-for-the-better storyline and makes it resonate.
Continue reading “Simmering Students to Perfection” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Drag Me to Hell (2009)
Melissa Moseley/Universal Studios
“Drag Me to Hell” finds Sam Raimi returning to his schlocky horror roots, forgoing the polished world of the “Spider-Man” franchise for an enthusiastically made, tongue-in-cheek dose of low-budget horror. With a healthy comic sensibility and plenty of boo moments, it confidently evokes the B movies that groomed Mr. Raimi and many of his colleagues.
Continue reading “The Road to Hell Is Paved With Cruel Intentions” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Fugitive Pieces (2008)
N. Nikolopoulos/Samuel Goldwyn Films
There is a certain air of familiarity surrounding “Fugitive Pieces,” which – thematically at least – treads similar ground to one of the year’s more successful releases, “The Reader.” Both films are based on much-lauded novels and concern a middle-aged, academic type coming to terms with a past which has been blighted, in some way, by Nazi atrocities. In “The Reader,” Ralph Fiennes played a lawyer mentally haunted by the woman who was his first love and the subsequent revelations of her true nature. Meanwhile in “Fugitive Pieces,” a writer named Jakob (Stephen Dillane) is obsessed with the fate of his older sister, who was seized by German soldiers and taken to an unknown but certainly tragic end.
Continue reading “The Burden on Those Left Behind” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Departures (2008)
Regent Releasing/Here Media
In a surprise win over the much-hyped “Waltz with Bashir” and “The Class,” a modest film from Japan took this year’s Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. “Departures” is a beautiful, quietly moving film which hits the mark precisely because it does not try to be too ambitious in telling the simple story of a man finding his way in the world.
Continue reading “Spirited Awry” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Francois Duhamel/The Weinstein Company
First and foremost, “Inglourious Basterds” is better than “Death Proof” – but then it would be some feat if it had actually been worse. This time, Quentin Tarantino's self-indulgence is relatively corralled, thanks to a bunch of voluntary narrative restraints that pretty much force the director to calm down. In “Death Proof,” Mr. Tarantino was in your ear constantly, fidgeting and giggling and nudging you in the ribs. There are whole stretches of “Basterds” where he shuts up. It must have been an almighty effort.
The problem is that he's achieved this zen condition by being relatively conventional. Or as conventional as a man with his crazy ear for speech patterns and keen eye for the female instep could ever be, when making a WWII epic set in a Nazi-occupied sector of the Twilight Zone.
Continue reading “Triumph of the Ill Will” »