Category Archives: Reviews

ARCHIVE REVIEW: Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings

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Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings
Directed by: Peter Jackson
Written by: Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens (screenplay), J.R.R Tolkien (novel)
Starring: Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, and Sean Astin

Epic. All the way around. No need to keep this secret.

Almost a decade later Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings remains a cinema feat and a visual masterpiece, a classic at this point. It is an exposition and beginning to a continuing series of adventures, thrills, sentiments and technical wonders. Not much is needed to be said about these things because they are obvious and they are appreciated by nearly all. Consider Lord of the Rings the Star Wars of this generation, only an even longer time ago.

Despite its mastery in CGI, its enchantment, awesomeness and appeal to give it real nerd cred before anybody ever heard of Comic-Con, it has a lot more to brag about. There are elements in The Fellowship of the Rings and the rest of the trilogy for that matter, which would be a crime to overlook. Continue reading →

REVIEW: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

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Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Directed by: Edgar Wright
Written by: Michael Bacall & Edgar Wright (screenplay), Bryan Lee O’Malley (graphic novels.)
Starring: Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jason Schwartzman, and Anna Kendrick

It almost seemed as if America had had enough of Michael Cera.  His “quirkier than thou,” acting career had cornered its hipster niche, and then pummeled it with character after awkward character until they just couldn’t take it anymore.  As we saw with his two earlier and still best movies, Superbad and Juno, his comic style’s effectiveness is screenplay dependent.  Thankfully, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World‘s got one of those, and it doesn’t pummel you with his long pauses or dopey, annoying sensibilities.

Another thing this potent, and fully alive comic book adaptation’s got is a visual style.  I’d rather be pummeled by fantastic visuals than awkward pauses any day, and director Edgar Wright does this.  It can overwhelm at times, and if it were in 3D it would kill you, but Wright effectively makes up for this summer’s lack of visual polish.  You’ll feel like you’re watching a music video and playing a video game, especially if you’re familiar with the artistry of both mediums.

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REVIEW: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

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The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Directed by: Niels Arden Oplev
Written by: Nikolaj Arcel & Rasmus Heisterberg (screenplay), Sieg Larsson (novel)
Starring: Noomi Rapace, Michael Nyqvist, Peter Haber, and Sven-Bertil Taube

No matter how many times it happens, it is always a disappointment when a movie adapted from a book doesn’t live up to its source material.  It happens too often, usually because it’s trying to please the fans or just doesn’t translate well as a movie.  Neither of these are the problem with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, it’s that the wrong things were cut and not enough was condensed from the 600 page novel to keep a film viewer engaged.

For all of its narrative bumps, the chief success of this movie is capturing the grotesque and demented sense of discovery you get reading Stieg Larsson’s best-seller.  It follows Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), a disgraced Swedish journalist who leaves his self-financed magazine Millennium to help it survive his blighted reputation.  He is contacted by Henrik Vanger, an aging business tycoon  looking to tie up his loose ends.  He wants Blomkvist to help solve the 40 year old murder of his niece Harriet.  Blomkvist retreats to the island where the murder takes place, and where all the bitter Vanger family/suspects still reside.  Aided by the hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace),  Blomkvist embarks on a treacherous investigation that puts them on the tail of a serial killer that may or may not have killed Harriet.

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REVIEW: Cyrus

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Cyrus
Directed by: Jay Duplass and Mark Duplass
Written by: Jay Duplass and Mark Duplass
Starring: John C. Reilly, Jonah Hill, Marisa Tomei, Catherine Keener

Cyrus (Jonah Hill), thankfully a character having nothing to do with the more famous Disney celebrity franchise, is not a typical character. His single parent mother (Marisa Tomei) loves him dearly, rocking him to sleep during his panic attacks, sharing her bathroom with him while he brushes his teeth, playing with him in the park, leaving her door open to him at night and even kissing and cuddling him to shower him with love. The only difference is Cyrus is 21 going on 12.

Naturally, should be unnaturally, Cyrus acts out when a new man (John C. Reilly) enters his mom’s life. Meeting at a party his ex-wife (Catherine Keener) forced him to go to, Molly’s eye was caught on John’s penis and of course his big, open heart. Continue reading →

REVIEW: The Kids Are All Right

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The Kids Are All Right
Directed by: Lisa Cholodenko
Written by: Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg
Starring: Annette Bening, Juliane Moore, Mark Ruffalo and Mia Wasikowska

You usually watch a movie about the inner workings of the suburban American family expecting to see it deconstructed, but sitting through Lisa Cholodenko’s bracing, hilarious The Kids Are All Right you watch something strange: it being rebuilt.  Following an economic crisis and subsequent rethinking of what it means to be American, Kids comes at the perfect time.  It rethinks the nuclear family on the silver screen by doing the most daring thing: not mentioning it.

Nic (Annette Bening) and Jules (Juliane Moore), the two moms at the center of the film, were each impregnated by the same sperm donor.  Now that their daughter Joni (Mia Wasikowska) has turned 18, her brother Laser (Josh Hutcherson) pressures her to contact the donor (Mark Ruffalo).  They do, it’s awkward, and it almost tears the happy family apart.

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ARCHIVE REVIEW: Finding Neverland

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Finding Neverland
Directed by: Marc Forster
Written by: David Magee (screenplay) Allen Knee (play)
Starring: Johnny Depp, Kate Winslet, Dustin Hoffman, Julie Christie, Freddie Highmore

Finding Neverland is the Jonny Depp film Tim Burton has attempted to make time over and time over, and has failed to create despite all his creative savvy.

It is the fairy re-tale of the classic Peter Pan story.  What makes Neverland so brilliant is that it doesn’t attempt to retell and spit out the same story with a teeny-tiny twist or different color palette like Burton’s Alice in Wonderland and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Instead the film looks at the story with a whole new scope, depreciating no magic or thematic value, and instead enhancing it and recreating it into a marvelous, heartwarming story worth remembering like the original. Continue reading →

ARCHIVE REVIEW: Monster

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Monster
Directed by: Patty Jenkins
Written by: Patty Jenkins
Starring: Charlize Theron, Christina Ricci, Bruce Dern, and Annie Corley

You don’t have to say someone’s name to show who they are.  Some of the best biopics, most notably this one and Todd Hayne’s I’m Not There, never acknowledge the subject’s name until the very end.  On IMDB, Charlize Theron is cast simply as Aileen, not Aileen Wuornos.

Monster is proof of a lot of things, most notably that there really isn’t much to a name when you think about it.  Selby (Christina Ricci) simply calls her new lover Lee, an affectionate name in comparison to what most other people call her.

Street walker, hooker, prostitute- whatever you want to call her job, it defines her more heavily than anything in the sordid past that led her to it.  Monster starts out grabbing for your heartstrings, as Aileen narrates a look at her troubled childhood with a musing about being discovered like Marilyn Monroe.  In the enhanced colors of this dreamy flashback, we cut abruptly to her as an adult in the 80’s, sitting under a highway overpass as it pours rain.  In this movie, there are happy moments, and there is life.

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REVIEW: Dinner for Schmucks

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Dinner for Schmucks
Directed by: Jay Roach
Written by: David Guion & Michael Handelman
Starring: Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, Zach Galifianakis, and Jemaine Clement

The mainstream American comedy is in trouble.  Like the America pre-economic meltdown, it’s been lulled into a state of laziness.  Audiences are being tricked into the same movie over and over again by slick, money-grubbing studio executives, not unlike those bankers and brokers.  And so here we are with Dinner for Schmucks, the latest comic swindler from the modern studio system.

At the helm, if it even matters, is director Jay Roach, who previously brought us Meet the Parents, a funny if not overwhelmingly original movie with a diverse cast that drew in a lot of different people.  With this movie, we get the inevitable pairing of Steve Carell and Paul Rudd, who first worked together on the 40 Year Old Virgin.

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REVIEW: Mother

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Mother
Directed by: Joon-ho Bong
Written by: Eun-kyo Park & Joon-ho Bong
Starring: Hye-ja Kim, Bin Won, Ku Jin, and Yoon Jae-Moon

To call Mother, the latest effort from seminal South Korean filmmaker Joon-ho Bong, obscure would be putting it lightly.  Rarely does a movie of such visual beauty have such an odd sense of humor, especially when the subject matter is so dark.  It begins with its small female protagonist dancing alone in the middle of a wheat field. It ends with the same dance, this time in a crowded bus.  It’s hard to describe a reaction to this, and I’m sure it will differ for many viewers.  However, it summarizes the movie quite well.

What begins as an odd tale of a mother/handicapped son relationship quickly saunters into an intriguing murder mystery.  When her son (Bin Won) is accussed of the murder of the local nympho, the unnamed mother (Hye-ja Kim) sets out to prove his innocence.

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ARCHIVE REVIEW: Casino Royale

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Casino Royale
Directed by: Martin Campbell
Written by: Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, & Paul Haggis (screenplay), Ian Flemming (novel)
Starring: Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, and Judi Dench

A lot of people didn’t want James Bond the movie character to have an origin.  One of the most iconic screen characters of all time hadn’t needed one after twenty films, and with the announcement of some blonde nobody taking over for Pierce Brosnon, tensions rose and spite was emitted before the movie even finished filming.

When the movie came out though, stunned silence from those unfortunate critics.  Seeing Martin Campbell’s realistic reboot of the 007 franchise after the Brosnon super-hero version left audiences turned off gave fans and newcomers alike one of the most entertaining movies they’d seen in years.  In fact, Casino Royale rates up there with the best of the Bond films, and it may even be the best.

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