Tag Archives: Movie reviews

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: The New World

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The New World
Directed by: Terrence Malick
Written by: Terrence Malick
Starring: Colin Farrell, Q’orianka Kilcher, Christian Bale, Christopher Plummer

Fairy tales are the ultimate sense of wonder and escapism for our society. With an entire culture fixated on Disney classics, princesses who fall in love with soldiers, forbidden love and foreign romances which are really more Americanized than we think, it is difficult to place realism and authenticity into the mix.

Stories of enchantment often require singing, colors, happy endings and no subtitles to satisfy our desires for fantasy. It is pathetic in a way. Our culture could not be content with a fairy tale didn’t have these elements; otherwise we strip it from the fairy tale genre. Sure the words fairy tale mean magic, fabled or legendary, but must swooning love stories be doused in Hollywood conventions, Americanization, modernization or artistic eye-candy to make it romantic?

In Terrence Malick’s retelling of the classic Pocahontas story, he explores just that concept. Putting realism and authenticity into a classic fairy tale, he experiments with cinematic devices to convey something more raw, something more tangible and something more real. Continue reading →

Our 100th Post!

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Hello friends,

A few days shy of our 5 month anniversary, CyniCritics celebrates our 100th post on WordPress! We are proud to say that month by month our viewership keeps steadily increasing and the past few weeks have been record breakers, putting us on track to have one huge July. Thank you to everybody who has stopped by, read our stuff, engaged in the discussions and taken part in the fun. We would especially like to thank our other movie friends and the folks at L.A.M.B. for helping us out and providing a great blogging community to be a part of. We are happy for your support and friendship.

Looking forward to the future,

Luke and Matt

ARCHIVE REVIEW: Superbad

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Superbad
Directed by: Greg Mottola
Written by: Evan Goldberg
Starring: Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, Emma Stone, Seth Rogen

For the sake of our generation and the half-baked high school sex comedies that work (or won’t) to define it, there is an artist who is making sure that our comedies won’t be remembered by sex with pie, hangovers, ogres or those Sex and the City girls.

In Superbad he is only credited as a producer, but the film is loaded with a posse of writing partners, actors and talent who’ve all hitched their wagons to his success. It also resonates the style of the writer/director/producer in terms of narrative aesthetics, vulgar content, sentiment, male ego and penis jokes which he has vowed in every one his projects.

Judd Apatow, soon after finding endless success as a producer for Will Ferrell filth and once-roommate Adam Sandler, began rewriting Hollywood’s biggest scripts and becoming a critically adored creator of The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up, started a brand for himself in comedy which now rivals John Hughes or Ben Stiller. Up until Superbad it’s all been for grown-ups (thankfully not with that latest Sandler hit, Grown Ups).

With Superbad, the Apatow market finally starting serving minors. Continue reading →

ARCHIVE REVIEW: Gangs of New York

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Gangs of New York
Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Written by: Jay Cocks
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, Cameron Diaz, John C. Reilly

In its early ages, New York City was a dirty, filthy, muddled mess, sprawling over an untamable piece of land, controlled nothing more than the violent, greedy people who were trying to civilize it. With immigration and war on the rise, it was growing faster than ever, more torn that ever and more important than ever. Despite the bloodshed, it bloomed with the nation, undertaking a rapid transformation that would summarize America’s birth and stay in the world. In more ways than one, Gangs of New York is just like the city.

The film is often one that is most hacked by critics and Scorsese fans, mostly for its historical inaccuracy, length and muddled narrative. But just like the violent mess the city was, the movie follows suit, becoming a grand, grotesque but truthful epic tale of how a city and a nation were born.

Scorsese incorporates similar themes to his other famous works. There are the power struggles with men and women, violence as a substitution for sex, violence within class, nationality and religion. This movie hits them all, and it hits them with brute force. Continue reading →

REVIEW: The A-Team

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The A-Team
Directed by: Joe Carnaham
Written by: Joe Carnaham, Brian Blood, Skip Woods
Starring: Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Sharlto Copley, Quinten Jackson, Patrick Wilson, Jessica Biel

The A-Team, without really intending it or hoping to, is likely to become the very face of the summer 2010 box office. Not that it will be remembered years from now, a year from now, or even a month from now, but there are certain (all) elements of The A-Team that just have a way of summing up how much of a shit-show this summer has turned out to be.

With sequel after sequel, adaptation after adaptation, remake after remake, finding quality entertainment even for a summer action flick has proven to be harder than stopping a little leak in the Gulf, which as far as I’m concerned, has proven to be more entertaining coverage to watch than anything I’ve yet to see in theatres these past few months. Continue reading →

REVIEW: City Island

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City Island
Directed by: Raymond De Felitta
Written by: Raymond De Felitta
Starring: Andy Garcia, Alan Arkin, Julianna Margulies

Somewhere, quaintly hidden in all the bustle and busyness of New York City and the Bronx, there lies a small fishing village called City Island where the story takes place. And somewhere, quaintly hidden in all the bustle and busyness of Hollywood, there lies a small indie comedy called City Island where great laughs are harbored.

It is family melodrama at its finest, and most certainly entertaining. The film follows one family as they hide their smoking, their habits, their hobbies and their great secrets until misunderstanding after misunderstanding leads to a crescendo of  revelation and yelling. Continue reading →

REVIEW: Robin Hood

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Robin Hood
Directed by: Ridley Scott
Written by: Brian Helgeland
Starring: Russel Crowe, Cate Blanchett, Mark Strong, William Hurt

This happens just about every time an Academy Award winning team gets together to update a classic story into a big commercial success. It was the same sort of thing that happened with Alice in Wonderland earlier this year and the same sort of thing that will continue to happen when our favorite directors and actors take on a familiar unoriginal project. Disappointment. Continue reading →

REVIEW: The Ghost Writer

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The Ghost Writer
Directed by: Roman Polanski
Written by: Robert Harris and Roman Polanski
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Olivia Williams, Kim Cattrall

It is wise advice to be told as a storyteller to separate personal affairs and creative work if you are looking to tell a good story. But if you are looking to tell a great story, then making your work personal is exactly what you want to do. Roman Polanski, a nearly 80 year old filmmaker publicly known for currently being placed under house arrest for a sex scandal that happened back in the 70’s with a 13 year old girl, does something like that.

The Ghost Writer is film is by no means Polanski’s personal film, nothing in the likes of Woody Allen’s Whatever Works which in a way is his firm defense on being charged with molesting his 7 year old adopted daughter and later marrying wife’s biological daughter. In no ways does Polanski involve himself in the politics of the film, nor does he allow that sort of thing to distract from the story, but politics and controversy are nonetheless haunting this somber political thriller much like Polanski’s ghastly past must haunt him. His familiarity with scandal may be the reason this film is done so authentically. Continue reading →