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MOVIE REVIEW
Our Son (2023)
It’s no one fault, or it’s both their faults, but even with the best will in the world sometimes marriages just can’t be saved. In the case of book publisher Nicky (Luke Evans) and stay-at-home dad Gabriel (Billy Porter) neither of them has been perfect – overwork here, infidelity there – but the main issue is their different parenting styles for their son, Owen (Christopher Woodley), and the resentment which has seeped in until it’s the only thing they can feel. But “Our Son” is not a gay “Marriage Story,” even if that’s the easy marketing tagline which brought it to BFI Flare. Instead it’s about ordinary adult disappointments between an ordinary couple who happen to be gay and the ways in which their homosexuality directs the choices around their completely ordinary divorce.
Continue reading “Scenes From a Divorce” »
Sabrina Lantos/2018 Tribeca Film Festival
MOVIE REVIEW
State Like Sleep (2019)
Writer-director Meredith Danluck attempts to put a feminine spin on the tired noir genre with “State Like Sleep,” with Katherine Waterston’s character, Katherine, obsessing over the mysterious death of her celebrity ex husband (Michael Huisman) and getting tangled in a dangerous web of secrets.
Continue reading “Miss Me Deadly” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Fast & Furious 6 (2013)
Universal Pictures
Expectations are naturally low when you enter the sixth part of a franchise, unless you’re a J. K. Rowling fan and you’re watching "Harry Potter," and with "Fast Five" being such a lackluster affair, the expectations here are rock bottom.
To attempt to offer an outline of the plot would not only be pointless, but in a way would do the film a disservice. There is a story of sorts, involving some military bad guys and a MacGuffin (in the form of a world-ending microchip) but it’s so thin and clearly only there to allow the ridiculous action to happen, that it’s barely worth mentioning. All the gang are back — including one that was supposedly dead — and they’re all needed for one last job . . . again.
Continue reading “Driving, a Hard Bargain” »
MOVIE REVIEW
The Raven (2012)
Larry Horricks/Universal Pictures
Once upon a meeting dreary, full of pitches weak and weary,
Comes some bright spark speaking vaguely and invoking Alan Moore.
"Dusty books can still be thrilling, old ghost stories still be chilling,
Studio can make a killing with that story in the drawer,
If we ginger up that poem which we read at school before
Where the bird says "Nevermore."
Continue reading “Merely This and Nothing More” »
MOVIE REVIEW
The Three Musketeers (2011)
Rolf Konow/Summit Entertainment
Not sure what Alexandre Dumas père ever did to deserve having “The Three Musketeers” defiled for the big screen more than 20 times. With the exception of the 1921 Douglas Fairbanks and the 1948 George Sidney versions, few are even remotely watchable. It seems that with each new stab at upping the ante, the story’s quality takes another hit. If you don’t think it can possibly get worse than the one with Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, Chris O’Donnell and Oliver Platt from 1993, just wait until you see the new 3-D treatment.
Continue reading “It Takes More Than a Good Man to Prevent a Catastrophe” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Tamara Drewe (2010)
Peter Mountain/Sony Pictures Classics
“Tamara Drewe” contains, in one handy parcel, all which the English celebrate in middle-class life: wine and cheese at an author signing in a local bookshop; chickens being hand-reared at the back of the garden; horsey women with shotguns and wellies; a thriving village pub/bed-and-breakfast with a cheerful Aussie manageress; organic, locally grown food. The movie, with cinematography by Ben Davis, looks great, too: It never rains; the partial nudity is tastefully done; and when clothes are worn, they’re perfectly ironed. This film captures exactly a middle-class fantasy of life within the English countryside. This is not a bad thing, as safe middle-classness is rarely depicted, much less celebrated, in British media; the reverse of life as known in this film was last year’s “Better Things.” “Tamara Drewe” is a gentle satire without being mean-spirited, which is a difficult tone to maintain; and as far as comedy goes, it’s actually quite good in its understated fashion.
Continue reading “Dirty Pretty Flings” »