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Lee Hirsch’s documentary Bully is often painful to watch, so ably does it capture the torment some kids endure on a daily basis, as well as the aftereffects. Already much-discussed due to the distracting controversy stirred by the initial R rating slapped on it by the MPAA, it is a work of uncommon power. The … Continue reading
Hyped as the new Evil Dead; it’s more accurate to call The Cabin in the Woods the new Scream. A gleefully anarchic horror comedy by Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard (co-writers, producer, and director — in that order), it sets up a horror movie scenario we’ve seen a thousand times before, pokes numerous holes in it, and then gives … Continue reading
A tale told in broad strokes, The Iron Lady is an average biopic grounded by yet another award-winning performance by Meryl Streep, who this time transforms herself into controversial Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in a performance that deserves a better movie to inhabit. It’s a very loose biography, framed by an inordinate amount of screen time set … Continue reading
An erotic French drama about two married couples who swap partners sounds intriguing on the page, but as committed to film by Antony Cordier Four Lovers instead offers little more than soft-core titillation punctuated by tedium. The story unfolds mostly through the eyes of Rachel (Marina Foïs), a jewelry designer married to Franck (Roschdy Zem), … Continue reading
For better or worse, comic book-themed movies continue apace, and have become a full-fledged genre in their own right. With the latest offering (the first of four assorted superhero flicks scheduled for release this summer), Marvel Studios delivers a creative, enjoyable, fast-past movie. Based on one of the company’s hokier characters, who in turn is based on Norse … Continue reading
X-Men: First Class is a true fantasy/sci-fi film rarity: It’s a prequel that doesn’t pilfer its source material blind for the sake of greatly diminished returns (we’re looking at you, George Lucas), and a comic book origin story that doesn’t get bogged down in the details. Brisk, exciting, and imaginative, it helps right a franchise that’s … Continue reading
The ongoing march of the comic book movie genre stumbles a bit with Warner Bros.’ sporadically entertaining adaptation of the slightly obscure Green Lantern. It’s not the fiasco early reports would have you believe, nor is it as engaging as the recent Thor or X-Men: First Class. Generally affable Ryan Reynolds stars as Hal Jordan, a hotshot test pilot … Continue reading
Another installment of my award-unwinning Movie Night column for Lit Monthly has posted on the magazine’s sexy website. Click on the photo and learn why exactly I have no interest in procreation.
Another in Hollywood’s incredibly long line of pointless, unnecessary remakes, Straw Dogs is a hollow, superficial film that trades moral ambiguity for cheap sensationalism. Granted, director Sam Peckinpah’s version (based on the novel The Siege of Trencher’s Farm by Gordon Williams) was a savage male fantasy of misogyny and macho empowerment that left the viewer feeling … Continue reading
Best known for more romantic fare such as Her Majesty Mrs. Brown, Shakespeare in Love, and Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, director John Madden turns in a muddled but modestly enjoyable thriller with The Debt, a remake of the 2007 Israeli film Ha-Hov. Much of the story unfolds via flashback, in East Berlin in 1966, where a team of Mossad agents — … Continue reading
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