Spoiler Scale (How spoilery is this article on a scale 1 to 10?): 3 For his fourth film as writer and director, This Is 40, Judd Apatow plucks two of the more memorable characters from his second film Knocked Up (2007) – married couple Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie (Leslie Mann, Apatow’s wife) – who are both turning 40. Things could be much better, financially and otherwise. ... Read More »
Spoiler Scale (How spoilery is this article on a scale of 1 to 10)? 3 For the uninitiated, Les Misérables is set during the 18-year period following the French Revolution. There is good and evil, but not a whole lot in between. People fall in love at first sight and die by simply losing the will to live. All the Big Themes pop up – crime and punishment, mercy, ... Read More »
Spoiler Scale (How spoilery is this review on a scale of 1 to 10?): 3 Biopics are dramatizations of real life figures, not documentaries. Understanding the artistic opportunities offered by the biopic, some of the best fillmmakers take chances by trying to capture the truth behind the character (e.g., Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002)). But moviegoers tend to be unforgiving when a biopic strays too far from the more conventional “just ... Read More »
Spoiler Scale (How spoilery is this article on a scale of 1 to 10)? 4 From the very first shot to the very last line of Killing Them Softly, writer/director Andrew Dominik (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)) paints a very bleak picture of the United States of America. “Bleak” might be too weak a word. “Cynicism” might be a ... Read More »
In all honesty, I cannot say that I am as optimistic about the films slated for release in 2013 as I was for 2012. The cinemas will be full of more prequels and sequels than ever. Apparently, the argument about whether to pump so much money into franchise films is over. The only remaining disagreement seems to be over title conventions – should the powers-that-be go ... Read More »
I normally save my “bests” and “worsts” for the end of the year, but in the case of trailers, I feel confident that all of the 2012 entries are in. Most of us have mixed feelings about trailers. Certainly, a trailer can ruin the plot of a film. Similarly, being exposed to a trailer too many times can have the opposite ... Read More »
Spoiler Scale (How spoilerly is this article on a scale of 1 to 10)? 3 Will they or won’t they? Yes, this is one of those movies. But is Silver Linings Playbook a good one of those movies? The film opens with Paul (Bradley Cooper) just being released from an eight-month stay at a Baltimore mental hospital into the custody of his parents (Robert DeNiro and ... Read More »
Spoiler Scale (How spoilery is this article on a scale of 1 to 10?): 3 Having seen about a dozen 007 films, mostly in my childhood, I am not what you would call a big fan the franchise. So I was initially skeptical when I heard about the “reboot” back in 2006. (At that time, director Martin Campbell’s most notable work was another forgettable entry ... Read More »
Having just battled through the difficulty of writing a post about my favorite Stephen King horror adaptations, I was dismayed by several recent reviews for Cloud Atlas (2012) – the Wachowski siblings’ adaptation of David Mitchell’s best-selling novel. I have not read this novel, but I feel like I have. I mean, I am now well aware of the differences in narrative structure between the film and the novel, thanks ... Read More »
Spoiler Scale (How spoilery is this article on a scale of 1 to 10)? 8 Writer/director Lars von Trier’s Antichrist (2009) is the single most disturbing film I have seen in the last decade. To be sure, I was not a big fan of the torture porn wave, although I have seen Saw (2004) and Hostel (2005). And although I have never covered my ... Read More »
