Posted on January 30, 2012 by Darren
Young Adult is a good film, even if it falls short of greatness. It has a wonderfully engaging premise, and a set of truly wonderful leading performances from Patton Oswalt and Charlize Theron. It is also, for most of its runtime, a very compelling and brave examination of a very flawed protagonist. For the first two-thirds of the film, it invites us to follow a truly loathsome lead character, one with very few redeeming features. Unfortunately, this rather gutsy set-up is undermined by a fairly shallow attempt to justify and rationalise her flaws in the movie’s third act.
Homecoming queen?
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Buddy, charlize theron, Elizabeth Reaser, film, Mavis, Movie, non-review review, patrick wilson, Patton Oswalt, review, Theron, Young Adult | 5 Comments »
Posted on January 27, 2012 by Darren
Tucker and Dale vs. Evil is probably the funniest movie I’ve seen in a long time. I’ll admit that I probably skew a little bit towards it, what with being a fan of cheesy horror movies and a sucker for a high concept comedy, but Eli Craig’s cinematic debut feature is a masterful comedic deconstruction of the conventional horror film, daring to turn genre conventions on their head and ask: why do we always side with the college students in these sorts of films?
What a waist...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Alan Tudyk, Dale, Eli Craig, film, Hills Have Eyes, Horror film, Movie, non-review review, review, Tucker, Tucker & Dale vs Evil, Tyler Labine, wes craven | 2 Comments »
Posted on January 26, 2012 by Darren
Paul is a charming little film. It’s not the most consistently hilarious comedy of the year, and it occasionally gets a little bit too hung up on a particular joke, but it does have a few chuckles and an affable quality that allows it go down easy. There’s a genuine sense of affection in the film, following two British nerds and the eponymous alien escapee on a road trip across America, but there’s also enough of a bite the film never wallows too much in sentimentality. It’s hard to find a single quality that Paul excels in, but it has a broad enough mesh of qualities that it makes for a pleasant enough viewing experience.
Ap-paul-ling behaviour...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: andy serkis, Bob Clampett, Charles Darwin, Computer-generated imagery, film, Frost, Hot Fuzz, Movie, non-review review, Paul, review, Richard Hammond, rise of the planet of the apes, Seth Rogen, Southern United States, United States | 6 Comments »
Posted on January 25, 2012 by Darren
My Cousin Vinny still works after all these years, I think, because it’s pretty broad and universal in its humour. It’s essentially two types of fish-out-of-water film blended together, simultaneously documenting a street-smart guy tangling with the red tape of legal bureaucracy, and offering a standard city-slickers adventure with “Noo Yawker” Vinny and his girlfriend adjusting to life in the Deep South. My Cousin Vinny is funny and frank, but never offensively so. It’s aware that it’s trading in caricatures and stereotypes, but never seems too mean in its portrayal of anybody.
Giving the legal system the fingers...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Alabama, Crime and Justice, film, Humor, Jersey Shore, Joe Pesci, Marisa Tomei, Movie, My Cousin Vinny, non-review review, review, Tomei, Vincent Gambini, Vinny | Leave a comment »
Posted on January 24, 2012 by Darren
I like Bruce Almighty. I’ll concede that I might even like it more than any other of Jim Carrey’s madcap comedies. I think that it’s easily among the best of the comedies he produced after the millennium, doing well from a strong supporting cast and nice central moral. It isn’t deep or profound, and it’s unlikely to offer any more philosophical insight than anybody had going in, but it also manages to avoid being completely vacuous or empty. It’s remarkably satisfying for a light screwball comedy, even if it is a little on-the-nose.
All at sea...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Bruce, Bruce Almighty, Carrey, film, god, jennifer aniston, jim carrey, Morgan Freeman, Movie, non-review review, review, Steve Carell | 2 Comments »
Posted on January 23, 2012 by Darren
George Clooney’s work in The Descendants is being hailed as the actor’s greatest performance to date. Truth be told, I suspect that Clooney’s filmography has (generally speaking) been remarkably strong, so it’s difficult to really isolate the actor’s “best” performance. That said, I do think that The Descendants allows Clooney to play his most mature role to date, as Clooney finds the heart and the heartbreak in this darkly comic drama about a “part-time parent”who gets a major bump in responsibility following his wife’s near-fatal accident.
Hedging his bets...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: actor, Alexander Payne, Clooney, Descendants, Descendents, george clooney, Jim Rash, Judy Greer, Matt King, non-review review, Payne, review, Shailene Woodley, ShaileneWoodley, Sideways | 4 Comments »
Posted on January 20, 2012 by Darren
Man, I love Tremors. I’m a professed B-movie geek who grew up on the particularly cheesy Wes Craven and John Carpenter films of the seventies and eighties, who has always harboured a soft spot for playful monster movies, so I reckon I’m the film’s target audience. Tremors is one of those affectionate throwbacks, those movies that don’t just aim to evoke a particular genre and time period (as The Expendables was a generis eighties action movie produced twenty-five years too later) so much as offer an up-to-date and self-aware reinvention of them (as Spielberg produced a thirties adventure serial with modern sensibilities in Raiders of the Lost Ark, or Rodriguez offered a brutally hilarious modern-day Mex-ploitation film in Machete). Tremors is basically a fifties B-movie produced with late eighties A-list talent and self-awareness.
The town's gone to ground...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Bacon, Brent Maddock, Earth Sciences, Fossil, fred ward, John Carpenter, kevin bacon, non-review review, Paleontology, Peter Lindbergh, raiders of the lost ark, review, Ron Underwood, Russians, Tremors, Vertebrates, wes craven, wilson | 6 Comments »
Posted on January 19, 2012 by Darren
Carnage is pretty much an excuse to watch four very skilled actors ripping chunks out of one another. What’s not to like?
This means Warhol!
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: alan, carnage, christoph waltz, film, God of Carnage, jodie foster, john c. reilly, kate winslet, Michael, Movie, Nancy, non-review review, Penelope, review, roman polanski, Yasmina Reza | 12 Comments »
Posted on January 18, 2012 by Darren
I’ll concede that I’m surprised how much I liked J. Edgar. Acknowledging that I’ve been a lot fonder of Clint Eastwood’s more recent output than most, and accepting that this film (like many of his recent films) has considerable flaws, I found it a fascinating examination of twentieth century America, explored through the lens of one character’s life. While it isn’t nearly objective enough (and is far too sensationalist) to be considered a truly effective account of the life of one John Edgar Hoover, it does offer a thoughtful meditation on the relationship between old and young, the corruption of moral responsibility and the lingering doubt that maybe our generation’s elders have somehow disappointed us. It’s in these reflective moments that Eastwood is at his strongest, hitting on themes the director knows especially well. Unfortunately, it is undermined by its handling of the famed FBI director’s personal and sexual life, if only because it completely lacks subtlety and nuance.
There's a lot on the line...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Clint Eastwood, Clyde Tolson, Dustin Lance Black, eastwood, Eleanor Roosevelt, film, Hoover, J Edgar, j edgar hoover, Leonardo diCaprio, Movie, non-review review, review | 2 Comments »
Posted on January 17, 2012 by Darren
Steven Soderbergh is an interesting film maker. Even when his films don’t really come together as well as one might hope, you can’t help but admire some of his bold ambition. Contagion was probably one of the boldest major releases of last year, and it was always fascinating even when it was just short of brilliance. Haywire falls into a similar trap, with some nice ideas, some great scenes, but nothing that really melds into a particularly compelling film. Indeed, Soderbergh’s spy thriller is messy, undoubted as the director intended – but it doesn’t seem like a highly-energised kinetic mess so much as poorly-plotted and muddled mess. The result is a film that is occasionally invigorating, but also quite infuriating.
On top of it...
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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Antonio Banderas, casino royale, Channing Tatum, ewan mcgregor, film, Gina Carano, Haywire, ian fleming, jason bourne, martin campbell, Michael Fassbender, Movie, non-review review, Paul Greengrass, review, Soderbergh, Steven Soderbergh | 3 Comments »
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