Archive | movies RSS feed for this section

They’ve Got the Blues

3 Dec

Cadillac Records tells the story of the influential Chess Records label, founded by Leonard Chess (Adrien Brody) in Chicago in the 1950s, and home to such legendary artists as Muddy Waters (Jeffrey Wright), Little Walter (Columbus Short), and Etta James (Beyoncé Knowles).

The film includes all the essentials of the musical biopic, including sex, drugs, and a sketchy manager-type — the title comes from Chess’ habit of paying off his successful artists with Cadillacs, instead of giving them the money they’re rightfully earned.

But it also includes one other very important element: great music. Continue reading →

Seriously Dark

3 Dec

I love this video and this site, and totally agree: The Dark Knight has been the best movie to be released so far this year. This well-made clip certainly backs up that claim. And on a related note, this is bull crap. And on another related note, the movie comes out on DVD this coming Tuesday. I can’t wait to watch it again.

They Come from a Land Down Under

25 Nov

Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge! was such a brilliant mix of sight, sound, and story that I paid to see it three times in the theater.

(Really. I thought it was awesome and unlike anything I’d ever seen before.)

His latest film, Australia?

Not so much.

It’s a sweeping epic love story set during World War II, and it’s consistently a feast for the eyes, but the story just isn’t a compelling enough one to make it worth seeing. Continue reading →

Whole Milk

24 Nov

If you want to see tour-de-force acting, look no further than Gus Van Sant’s Milk, which features Sean Penn playing the title role of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in the United States. The film couldn’t really be much more timely, what with barriers being broken in national elections and with Proposition 8 passing in California earlier this month. But modern-day parallels aside, Milk recounts how one man seeking to stop injustices rose up and made a difference, becoming an icon and an inspiration for people everywhere. The movie’s so good that Milk comes off as someone that gay and straight people alike can call a hero.

I don’t know how much more you need to know about the plot given that Milk is about a real person and it’s based on a true story. I’d rather tell you about the excellent cast, which besides Penn also includes James Franco as Milk’s lover, Scott; Emile Hirsch as Cleve Jones, Milk’s protege; and Josh Brolin as Dan White, Milk’s assassin. Franco especially gives a very moving and sympathetic performance, but all members of the cast are impressive. Van Sant tells the story in a tender and not heavy-handed way, making this a universal story and not a “gay” one or any other kind of marginalization. Milk is undoubtedly a sympathetic portrait of the man, and he comes off as one of us: someone who saw a wrong in his community and sought to make it right through sheer will and in the face of extreme prejudice. By the end of Milk, you’ll not only be cheering for Milk’s accomplishments (and Penn’s performance), you’ll be wondering why the gay community still has so far to go in terms of their quest for equal rights. I love this movie. It’s one of the best of the year, and one that I hope has an impact beyond the box office. I’m giving Milk an A–.

A Winner

23 Nov

Not since Once have I enjoyed a movie as much as I did Slumdog Millionaire.

A story of hope and love, Millionaire is a rare must-see in a crowded movie marketplace. It’s definitely one of my favorites of the year.

The plot of the movie is rather simple: When Jamal, a former street child from Mumbai, appears on the Hindi version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and gets every question right, he is accused of cheating. After all, there’s no way an uneducated young man who grew up poor and without parents could get questions right that scholars and other brainy people couldn’t, right?

Well, as it turns out, every question Jamal is asked has some kind of tie to something in his life. The film jumps back and forth from the quiz show to those events, but not until the end do you really know whether it was luck, money, cheating, or destiny that lead to Jamal’s success. Continue reading →

Revenge Served Cold

17 Nov

What is there to say about the new James Bond film, Quantum of Solace?

To get right to the point, it’s just not as good as Casino Royale, mostly because it’s not as character-driven or fun, and it spends too much time on forgettable action. There’s no scene in the new flick as exciting or cool as the construction site chase in Casino, for example.

But that said, Quantum is not a bad movie. It’s just disposable. Daniel Craig still projects icy cool, and he still makes a very good action hero when given the chance. Continue reading →

Synecdo-what??

10 Nov

Chances are good you’ve never seen a movie quite like Synecdoche, New York.

First of all, about that hard-to-pronounce title. The film takes place (or at least part of it does) in Schenectady, New York, where Caden Cotard (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) is living a bleak existence and is convinced he’s dying. Eager to do something with his life before he goes (“That would be the time to do it,” Caden’s therapist tells him), he seeks to create a monumental theater piece that will document his existence and show that his life has meaning.

Now, according to Dictionary.com, the word synecdoche is “a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part, the special for the general or the general for the special.”

So to that end, the play becomes intertwined with Caden’s life, and soon there are multiple actors playing the same role (in Caden’s life and in his play), and the play becomes a play within a play within a play, with scenes and lines of dialogue repeating themselves. Chronology is blurred, and you never know if you’re watching Caden’s reality or his alternate reality. Continue reading →

And Your Whispering Eye

9 Nov

Role Models is far from a role model for what a great comedy should be. It has real potential — Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott are set up as big brothers to a nerd (played by McLovin himself, Christopher Mintz-Plasse) and a little kid with a big mouth (Bobb’e J. Thompson) — but it’s just not as funny as it probably should have been. Thompson is the best reason to see the movie. Otherwise, wait for it to show up on cable. I’m giving Role Models a B–.

A Lifetime of Pain

22 Oct

The new film Changeling tells a true story: In 1928, the son of Christine Collins (a single mother) disappeared. In order to find him, Christine had to go up against a corrupt Los Angeles Police Department and fight for them to continue the search, even though they kept telling her it was over. And of course, this was 1928, so a woman standing up for herself and fighting back against the police department (or any government office, for that matter) was not looked at so fondly. But Christine persevered, and with the help of an activist reverend, she made a difference in the Los Angeles legal system. No, Changeling is not a made-for-TV movie for the Lifetime network. It’s an actual big-screen movie starring Angelina Jolie (and John Malkovich) and directed by Clint Eastwood. And while Jolie is fine here, this is not one for her highlight reel.

Changeling really does belong on Lifetime with all the other melodramas. Like those films, it forces the star to spend much of the movie crying and yelling — what a change from A Mighty Heart, Jolie’s last missing person drama, in which her performance was more subtle and measured. Some of the dialogue in this very slow-moving movie is a bit laughable, and one key child actor is, well, let’s just say Clint should stick to adult actors. I don’t want to completely trash Changeling because truth be told, it’s not an awful movie. But throughout, I couldn’t help but think the lead should have been played by Valerie Bertinelli or Meredith Baxter, and that Jolie should go back to making movies that are more worthy of her. No wonder this one isn’t getting the big promotional push that other films with this caliber of talent would receive. Changeling only rates a B– from me.

Off to Visit Grandma

16 Oct

File this one under “I saw it so you don’t have to” — not that you really had any intention of seeing Sex Drive anyway, did you? (I didn’t think so.) This story of a shy 18-year-old virgin on a road trip to meet the hottie he’s met on the Internets and, hopefully, to have sex for the first time, is not an outrageous, obnoxious comedy like its name would imply. In fact, while there are some scenes that clearly are R-rated (one in a trailer and another in a rest room, for example), Sex Drive is actually a rather tame and sweet movie where said virgin realizes he’s actually in love with his female best friend before he can do the deed with the hottie (oops! Did I just ruin it for you?), that includes a handful of pleasant chuckles (mostly ones involving Seth Green’s Amish character). Nothing hysterical here, but nothing groan-worthy either. It’s like if American Pie and Superbad had a kid but the kid actually had a conscience. So I’m giving Sex Drive a not-awful B–.

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →