Saturday, May 19, 2012

Jeff Bridges’ performance isn’t the only thing in ‘Crazy Heart’ that soars.

January 11, 2010

From member Brandon Fibb: Crazy Heart arrives at a theater near you polished to a high gloss with the gushing accolades of critics and industry insiders. Some of these honors the film most certainly deserves. Others it does not. It is true that Crazy Heart contains one of the best performances by an actor this [...]

Read the full article →

‘Leap Year’ produces nothing that remotely matters.

January 11, 2010

From member Bradon Fibbs: Each year, there is a film that arrives like a thunderclap, ushering in a new cinematic era. Leap Year is that film. The era that is ending is the rich and rewarding season of holiday films that start roughly at the end of October and continue through Christmas. The era just [...]

Read the full article →

Guy Ritchie doesn’t bring much to the Sherlock Holmes canon

December 29, 2009

From member Dave Taylor: I’ve been a fan of Arthur Conan Doyle’s legendary detail-oriented detective Sherlock Holmes for as long as I can remember. As a young child I devoured the stories and as recently as last week was watching a classic 1944 Holmes movie, The Scarlet Claw, starring Basil Rathbone as the eponymous detective [...]

Read the full article →

‘Nine’ is all songs and no story

December 29, 2009

From member Brandon Fibbs: In my review of Rob Marshall’s Memoirs of a Geisha, I stated that the director had all the subtly of the Las Vegas Strip. What was meant as a disparaging condemnation for that film is actually a positive asset for his latest undertaking. When it comes to big, show-stopping musicals like [...]

Read the full article →

‘It’s Complicated’ is a comedy for thinking adults

December 29, 2009

From member Brandon Fibbs: Expecting the nutritional value of Christmas cotton candy, I instead left It’s Complicated convinced I’d seen the smartest, most insightful, funniest romantic comedy since When Harry was in Seattle. Or was it When Sally was Sleepless? Either way, It’s Complicated is the most enjoyable present you’re bound to find beneath your [...]

Read the full article →

Review: ‘A Single Man’

December 29, 2009

From member Brandon Fibbs: A Single Man is a lavish and romantic examination of interrupted love, a chronicle of life and loss and everything that binds it together. Its mood is its truth and its imagery is all the narrative we need. It is one of the most beautiful things you will set eyes on [...]

Read the full article →

‘Sherlock Holmes’ is a noisy, brutish film full of refined violence

December 29, 2009

From member Brandon Fibbs: I walked into Sherlock Holmes more than a little anxious. As a longtime fan of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famed detective and a voracious reader of his exploits, I was concerned that director Guy Ritchie (Snatch, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) was going to transform the beloved literary icon into [...]

Read the full article →

‘The Young Victoria’ is grounded by dull history

December 24, 2009

How do you make an engaging film about a queen who lent her name to an era known primarily for stuffiness and repression? By adding a little blood and sex, and hoping for the best. At least, that’s the approach “The Young Victoria” tries, and the result is something akin to a tidy museum exhibit. [...]

Read the full article →

Nothing broken about ‘Embraces’

December 24, 2009

I’ve often argued that Spanish director Pedro Almodovar is incapable of making a bad movie. There’s greater and lesser Almodovar, and that’s about all that needs to be said. Broken Embraces — the latest movie from the now aging bad boy of Spanish cinema — falls somewhere between lesser and greater. Still, Broken Embraces is [...]

Read the full article →

A cop who’s bad to the bone: ‘Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans’

December 24, 2009

From member Robert Denerstein: Despite its title, Werner Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is only a distant cousin to Abel Ferrara‘s 1992 movie — also called Bad Lieutenant. Ferrara’s movie starred Harvey Keitel as the world’s most depraved detective. The new version stars Nicolas Cage as an equally corrupted cop, but one [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →