Head Over Heels
I walked out of a free screening of Down To Earth after 30 minutes, and, unwilling to just go home in the chilly rain, slipped into Head Over Heels. I have to admit, I (and my companion, with whom I...
View ArticleSum of All Fears
I saw this a couple of months before it opened at a test screener, and not since; yet ironically, am writing this review now. All shame aside, when I saw it that day, not being a Tom Clancy fan or Jack...
View ArticleBallistic: Ecks vs Sever
Based on the video game series, Ballistic appears to have been intended for the raging youth demographic. Casting Antonio Banderas and Lucy Liu was, theoretically, to draw in the regular people....
View ArticleThe Singing Detective
This may not sound like a positive statement, but it actually is: This movie is not for everyone. In the spirit of Pennies From Heaven, a Brechtian comment on the mental musical as a way to express the...
View ArticleMr. And Mrs. Smith (2005)
Oh, this should have been funnier. With Doug Liman (Swingers, Go) at the helm, and two actors who can actually pull off supernatural bad-assness with a certain believability (at least one of which is a...
View ArticleBefore The Devil Knows You're Dead
This film is an interesting one – a small ensemble drama that ratchets tension up bit by bit. It could have been a stage place except for the vital necessity of a camera. Ethan Hawke and Philip Seymour...
View ArticleGet Smart
Oh thank heaven, Get Smart is funny. If you are a fan of the show, there are enough little winks, nudges, and appropriately contextualized catch phrases to please you — but the movie doesn’t rely on...
View ArticleBurn After Reading
The Coen brothers pulled a deep and luscious film out of their pocket last year with No Country For Old Men. Eschewing their usual flavor of folksy, odd characters and detached amusement, that film was...
View ArticleQuantum of Solace
I did not look up director Marc Forster’s filmography until I had already written the below review, and now I am even more disappointed then I was previously. Before, this was a fun but forgettable...
View ArticleThe International
The previews for this make it sounds like the banks are in your pocket, bugging your phones, using your PIN numbers for hostage negotiations, which of course sounds ridiculous. I am pleased to report...
View ArticleDuplicity
The best thing about Duplicity is its leading actors — not just the snappy chemistry of Julia Roberts and Clive Owen, but also the vein-popping rivalry of Paul Giamatti and Tom Wilkinson. Duplicity...
View ArticleThe Taking of Pelham 123
My companion saw the 1974 original film adaptation of John Goday’s novel, remade here by Serious Director Tony Scott, and he reported that the original was just not this serious in tone. At the time,...
View ArticleThe Informant!
The Informant! (yes with the exclamation point, though no more for the rest of this review) positions itself as a wacky comedy and a sort of industrial espionage thriller, adapted from Kirt...
View ArticleSherlock Holmes
You may have watched the preview for Sherlock Holmes and thought, “This looks like Long Raging Bull Goodnight: Die Harder.” I suppose we have Hollywood to blame for that. Over the years they took...
View ArticleDespicable Me
I love Steve Carell. Like with Paul Giamatti, I will see just about anything Carell is in just to bask in his unique balance of warmth and dryness and fearlessness. Despicable Me is a middling movie...
View ArticleInception
The premise of Inception is difficult to convey, but worth the effort to ken. A technology exists, called “shared dreaming,” that allows two or more people to enter the same dream, and therefore the...
View ArticleSalt
After seeing Angelina Jolie and Liev Schrieber talk about Salt and its deep textual layers, complex character stories, and levels of deception at their Comic-Con panel, I got the impression that this...
View ArticleThe American
I have not read Martin Booth’s novel, A Very Private Gentleman, on which screenwriter Rowan Joffe based this film. I think that is the screenwriter of 28 Weeks Later can’t inject some adrenaline into...
View ArticleI Love You Phillip Morris
The events in this film are true ones — which makes it possible to enjoy the seemingly impossible misadventures of pathological con man Steven Russell (Jim Carrey) for what they are. If it were...
View ArticleThe Town
Full Price Feature If you, like me, were perplexed and put off by the ads and posters for The Town (think cars full of weird, wrinkly nun figures as the only salient image), please rectify your loss...
View Article