Apple TV+
“Wolfs” is the new action-comedy starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney and directed by Jon Watts, who is responsible for the last three “Spider-Man” movies. It should get some butts in seats on these names alone; here we have two of Hollywood’s surviving movie stars who’ve earned their stripes before the industry’s almost complete pivot to IPs in an effort to draw box office. But these household names and their screen personae can be a blessing and sometimes a curse. Case in point: “Wolfs.”
Continue reading “The Odd Couple” »
Atsushi Nishijima/Fox Searchlight Pictures
MOVIE REVIEW
Birdman or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance (2014)
“Birdman” continues Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s shift from gritty realism toward surrealism, first signaled at the end of “Biutiful.” Michael Keaton stars as Riggan Thomson, a washed-up actor desperate to shed his signature role in an eponymous ’90s Hollywood superhero franchise by writing, directing and starring in a Raymond Carver adaptation on Broadway. What’s surreal is the fact that Riggan does in fact possess Birdman’s superpowers.
Continue reading “Batshit Crazy” »
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
Green Zone (2010)
Jasin Boland/Universal Studios
In one sequence in “Green Zone,” Paul Greengrass’s latest shaky-cam thriller, U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Matt Damon) and his men carry out a dangerous mission inside the urban hot zone of Baghdad circa March 2003. After storming through the familiar crowded, dusty city streets lined with geometrically designed buildings of clay and stone, interrupting a meeting of former Baath Party big shots and coming away with a notebook of valuable information, their convoy enters a very different world.
It’s the Green Zone, the home of the Coalition Provisional Authority which oversaw the country in the heady early days of the occupation. Minutes after completing their mission, Miller finds himself in a meeting with a C.I.A. bigwig (Brendan Gleeson) by a luxury swimming pool outside Saddam’s former Republican Palace, with bikini-clad women, shirtless men sipping drinks and a general atmosphere more Las Vegas than ongoing war. Swarmed with diplomats that dodge piles of rubble as they ascend ornamental marble staircases and hold strategy conferences in lavish Byzantine rooms, it’s a surreal, provocative setting that perfectly symbolizes the hubris in the face of confusion that’s defined what “The Daily Show” deemed “Mess O'Potamia.”
Continue reading “Unlocking the Hurt” »
MOVIE REVIEW
The Missing Person (2009)
Strand Releasing
The contradictions in Noah Buschel's modern-dress noir, "The Missing Person," are all honed to a fine edge. Its booze-sodden, hard-boiled private dick can't comprehend the concept of a camera phone but can still discuss the finer points of Stravinsky with the Feds. The grizzled cabbie in the California desert turns out to be a New Yorker and a big admirer of Frank Serpico. And what looks like a general noirish rigmarole of dames, trains and automobiles actually hinges not just on the human catastrophe of New York's blackest day, but on the redemptive power of American art. It's a noir for the ages, and it's a treat.
Continue reading “Vanishing Within a Trace” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Changeling (2008)
Tony Rivetti, Jr./Universal Studios
Clint Eastwood’s latest film, “Changeling” – starring Angelina Jolie – dramatically explores the true story of a woman, her son, and an unusual abduction. The plot centers around a single mother, Christine Collins (Ms. Jolie), whose son Walter disappears one day in 1928. Desperate with grief and concern, she puts her faith in the Los Angeles Police Department, which is suffering from major public-relation problems due to excessive force and corrupt dealings. Months later, she receives news that her boy has been found. But when she meets him at the train station, she is less than joyful. The boy is clearly not her son, and she makes her feelings known to the people who brought him to her. The LAPD is unable to own up to the mistake, insisting that he is her boy but – due to his abduction and time away from home – perhaps he has “changed.”
Continue reading “Mother, Interrupted” »
