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When The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring arrived in theaters in 2001 (has it really been that long?) it marked a watershed moment in film: It was the first big-budget live action fantasy movie of its kind, steeped in high production values, a fanboy’s attention to detail, and bleeding edge special … Continue reading
Visually lush but otherwise over-thought and overwrought, Joe Wright’s misguided adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s epic tragedy sucks the life out of a classic staple of literature and film. Wright (Atonement, Pride and Prejudice) stumbles from the moment the curtain literally raises by presenting the story as if it were a stage play inside a film, … Continue reading
With Life of Pi, Ang Lee turns in his most engaging and confidently made feature since Brokeback Mountain (2005), and perhaps his most visually resplendent one ever. With fully realized characters inhabiting a carefully structured story embellished with stunning — but not overwhelming — visual effects, it’s part elemental survival epic, part coming-of-age fable, and part … Continue reading
We here at Movie Ink live by the maxim that “Being paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you”, and quite frankly we miss the Cold War. The world made more sense back then (in a surreal, Orwellian sort of way). The 50th anniversary of James Bond’s film career and the upcoming release of … Continue reading
Layered, ambitious, steeped in symbolism and philosophy, Cloud Atlas is almost everything you’d expect from a movie directed (or in this instance, co-directed) by the Wachowskis. “Almost” is a good thing in this instance, as the movie (based on David Mitchell’s novel) sheds most of the didacticism and visual excess that made the Matrix sequels … Continue reading
A classic misfire if there ever was one, Rob Cohen’s Alex Cross is intended to reboot the series based on the character made popular by James Patterson’s novels, previously played in two movies starring Morgan Freeman back in the ’90s. That comedy actor Tyler Perry (creator and star of the mega-popular Madea franchise) was cast in … Continue reading
With her suitably bleak and decidedly oblique adaptation of Emily Brontë’s classic novel, Academy Award-winning filmmaker Andrea Arnold (“Wasp”, Red Road) delivers a Wuthering Heights that is as cold and distant as is it lush and atmospheric. Anyone with a prejudice against Gothic melodrama isn’t likely to have their minds changed here. For all that’s … Continue reading
One of the most popular and influential genre writers of the pulp era, H. P. Lovecraft was a master of weird fiction, a heady blend of dark fantasy and terror with the occasional science fiction twist. His fans have long since opined the fact that the bulk of his works are long overdue for film … Continue reading
A minor cyberpunk achievement and major cult classic, Hardware is a daring exercise in sex, violence, rock and roll, and nihilism that makes up for its shoestring budget and rough edges with inventive filmmaking and cleverly realized vision. Based on a story from the British science fiction-themed comic book 2000 AD and set in a post-apocalyptic future … Continue reading
Bad-boy director William Friedkin (The French Connection, To Live and Die in L.A.) has definitely not mellowed in his old age. If anything, he’s gotten edgier and more in-your-face — and that’s saying a lot about the guy whose adaptation of The Exorcist still keeps people awake at night. His latest feature, a screen version of … Continue reading
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