It’s as though Guy Ritchie binge-watched Game of Thrones and then thought to himself, “Hey, I can do that!” and made KING ARTHUR: LEGEND OF THE SWORD. To which I reply, “No, Guy. No you can’t.” What we have here is a chaotic script that attempts several, mutually exclusive tones and genres, with poor Charlie… Read More »
SPY
When I reviewed BRIDESMAIDS, I spent a great deal of my verbiage on Melissa McCarthy’s supporting performance. Rarely had I seen an actress, or actor for that matter, so fearless, so sure of him- or herself, and with such a preternatural gift for discovering humor in the most unexpected places. She was nominated for an… Read More »
SHERLOCK HOLMES
Guy Ritchies approach to the SHERLOCK HOLMES is predictably, but delightfully, bombastic. Which is not to say that this lushly produced, stylishly realized film is not perfectly entertaining. A clever script that is not quite as sharp as it should be is redeemed by a pair of superb performances by Robert Downey, Jr, as the… Read More »
REPO MEN
REPO MEN, not by any stretch of the imagination to be confused with the similarly monikered Alex Cox masterpiece of a few decades back, is a bewilderingly awful concoction that seems to have been written by committee. A committee whose individual members were forbidden to contact one another and who seem, collectively, to be ignorant… Read More »
CONTAGION
Steven Soderbergh begins CONTAGION with a black screen, the sound of a cough, and, when the picture comes up on screen, the caption Day 2 in appropriately lurid red letters. The cough belongs to Gwyneth Paltrow, one of the legion of stars that shuffle through this sprawling tale of social devolution, and in a nicely… Read More »
SHERLOCK HOLMES — A GAME OF SHADOWS
Theres a nefarious plot to force the collapse of western civilization in SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS, and as befits an eponymous character, Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey, Jr.) is the only person who can save the day. Not just because he is scathingly brilliant, as is his arch-nemesis Professor Moriarity (Jared Harris). No, as… Read More »
COLD MOUNTAIN
If you already know that war is hell, then you can safely give COLD MOUNTAIN, based on the critically acclaimed novel of the same name by Charles Frazier, a miss and save that almost three hours of your life for something else. If for a reason unfathomable by me you need the lesson driven home for… Read More »
SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW
The most amazing thing about SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW is that the art direction isn’t the end of the story. Using sets created digitally and added to footage of actors emoting in front of a blue screen, writer/director Kerry Conran has fashioned an eye-popping roller coaster of a film that is a… Read More »
I HEART HUCKABEES
In David O. Russells latest film, I HEART HUCKABEES, the key to happiness is not finding true love, or landing the dream job, nor even success on the material plane. The key to happiness has nothing to do with altering the external accidents of existence, but rather with changing the inner view of what existence… Read More »
ALFIE
The thing about Jude Law is that he is so unbelievably beautiful. Such is his pulchritude, not to mention his irresistible onscreen charm, that its easy to overlook the undeniable acting chops that are greater even than the sum of his more ephemeral gifts. In ALFIE, Charles Shyer’s re-make of the 60s classic that starred… Read More »