The most interesting thing about FOUR CHRISTMASES, and it is slim pickings at best, is that from the dull farce that starts it, it so precipitously takes a steep nosedive into melodrama of the most predictable, sloppy sort. Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon, game and able players as are the rest of the veteran cast,… Read More »
GODS AND GENERALS
The problem with having read the book on which a film is based is that no matter how hard you try, its hard to divorce that book from its adaptation playing out before you on the big screen. So it is with GODS AND GENERALS, the prequel to GETTYSBURG, and based on the novel by… Read More »
THE JUDGE
THE JUDGE is everything thats wrong with studio bids for Oscar consideration. A carefully calculated effort designed to hit all the perceived necessary tropes to qualify as both important and as quality. Alas, it is neither. True, there are excellent performances by Robert Downey, Jr., Robert Duvall, Vera Farmiga, and Billy Bob Thornton, but they… Read More »
ASSASSINATION TANGO
You will either get caught up the quirkiness of Robert Duvalls latest film or you will leave the theater wondering what the heck it was that you just saw. Either way, theres no doubt that you will come away with why Duvall has become obsessed with the tango. Truth be told, I suspect that said… Read More »
OPEN RANGE
At the beginning of OPEN RANGE, Kevin Costners latest directing, acting and producing effort, a wagon becomes stuck in the mud after a torrential rainstorm. Kevin and his co-star Robert Duvall do get the wagon rolling again. Alas, the film itself remains mired in situ. Kevin returns here to the western genre and hes certainly… Read More »
THANK YOU FOR SMOKING
Aaron Eckhart should have been a much bigger movie star than he is by now. He’s got the dazzling good looks and the killer charisma required, but after several first-rate performances in little films (THE COMPANY OF MEN, YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS), fine journeyman’s work playing second-fiddle to powerhouse female leads (Julia Roberts’ boyfriend in… Read More »