James Cameron’s AVATAR is a bold and imaginative vision brought low by a script that plays it very, very safe. Timely and environmentally apt, the rich creativity that is evident in the imagining of Pandora, the planet that is Earth’s last, best hope for survival, is juxtaposed with stock characters from Cameron’s playbook, including the… Read More »
FANTASTIC MR. FOX
For years, Wes Anderson has created separate cinematic universes, different but oddly familiar, in which to tell his offbeat tales of family dynamics. In FANTASTIC MR. FOX, he has taken the next logical step and created an actual alternate reality. Using stop-motion animation, and a tale of excesses unbound by Roald Dahl, he has concocted… Read More »
KICK ASS
Forget subtexts about the influence of media violence on young and impressionable minds. Forget the other subtext about effect of family dynamics in forming the characters of those equally young and impressionable minds. Though both are present in KICK ASS, based on the comic book by Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr., and employed as… Read More »
ROBIN HOOD
Those hoping for a whiz-bang re-telling of the legend of merry men stealing from the rich and giving to the poor will be sorely disappointed with Ridley Scotts ROBIN HOOD. This is an origins tale, one that starts slowly and, despite anxious and insistent hand-held camera work to give the illusion of drama, never rises… Read More »
THE EAGLE
THE EAGLE is a literate slog through Roman-occupied Britain. It’s a gritty, atmospheric experience where honor is the goal, and finding it takes some unexpected turns. Based on the novel of the same name by Rosemary Sutcliff, it starts with actual historical incidents, adds artistic license, and comes up with a metaphorical tale that speaks… Read More »
BHUTTO
BHUTTO is a trenchant precis on global politics played out on very personal level. The complicated interrelation of governments and the laws of unintended consequences came to a startling nexus in the person of Benazir Bhutto, the subject of Duane Baughman and Johnny OHaras provocative documentary. She was the unlikely successor to a political dynasty,… Read More »
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, PART 2
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, PART 2 begins with a bang and doesn’t stop. Starting right where the last film ended, it barely has time to catch its breath, or go into florid exposition, before diving right into the final face-off between the boy, now man, wizard (Daniel Radcliffe), embodiment of all that is… Read More »
RIDDICK
Vin Diesel has carved a very specific niche for himself in filmdom as the anti-hero of the better (lower case) pulp fiction being produced for cinematic consumption. Resourceful, cunning, and above all more than merely human as he races very fast cars in the FAST AND FURIOUS franchise, or as he pummels entire planets into… Read More »
GRAVITY
Alfonso Cuarons GRAVITY is a masterpiece of both action and psychology. It is a film that sends its audience home with many things to ponder, and many lessons learned. It also sends that audience home with a whole new appreciation of air, and Im not sure thats an accident. So abundant here on the surface… Read More »
COUNSELOR, THE
Once upon a time there was a delightful play that spawned an equally delightful movie, both called ROZENCRANTZ AND GUILDERSTERN ARE DEAD. In it, two minor characters from Hamlet are given center stage, with the arch comedy suitable to the comic relief from a towering tragedy, as well as unexpectedly profound observations about the meaning… Read More »