Albert Nobbs was not my cup of tea, but it could possibly be yours. I’m not a big fan of period pieces, but I thought that by virtue of an incredible performance by Glenn Close, I would transcend my prejudice. Was Close’s performance technically excellent? Yes, probably. She had the accent, the gait, the look, [...]
Read More Albert Nobbs, drama, Glenn Close, Janet McTeer, joyce, Mia Wasikowska, Rodrigo Garcia
You’d think a movie about Liam Neeson duking it out with wolves in the wild would be exciting. You’d be wrong. Turns out The Grey, a macho but mushy existential survival tale directed by Joe Carnahan, is actually quite a slog — dreary, overly talky and capped by one of those maddeningly ambiguous endings that [...]
Read More action, adventure, Dallas Roberts, David, Dermot Mulroney, drama, Frank Grillo, Joe Carnahan, Liam Neeson, The Grey
In Chronicle we get one of the year’s best films, a fun and cool and awesome piece of lower-budget sci-fi that uses the found footage format, a simple but neat premise and seamless special effects to deftly detail in larger-than-life fashion what I imagine are the horrors of being a bullied teenager today. Dreamed up [...]
Read More Chronicle, Dane DeHaan, David, drama, Josh Trank, Max Landis, Sci-Fi, thrillerThe Concert, at least initially, is a goofy farce with a moderately ridiculous premise. A janitor working at the Bolshoi in Moscow, who himself was once its celebrated–and politically discredited–conductor (Alexeï Guskov), intercepts a fax from Paris inviting the orchestra to fill in for the L.A. Philharmonic, which has canceled. He decides to get the [...]
Read More Alexei Guskov, Dmitri Nazarov, drama, DVD, Melanie Laurent, R, The Concert, willThis isn’t a real review–I’m just writing to bring a movie to your attention: Burning Palms. I previewed this movie–a collection of five stories–over the weekend, and it was good. Really good. Here’s my caveat, though: It is dark. Very black humor. The themes may be disturbing to some, including rape and incest, but the [...]
Read More Burning Palms, Christopher Landon, comedy, drama, DVD, joyce, Lake Bell, R, Zoe SaldanaRemember back circa 2004, when Jude Law seemed to be in every other movie that came out? Well, this year it’s proven the same with Natalie Portman (Black Swan, No Strings Attached, Your Highness, Thor, etc.). This time, in The Other Woman, she’s playing the second wife of a successful New York lawyer (Scott Cohen) [...]
Read More Ayelet Waldman, blu-ray, Charlie Tahan, drama, DVD, Lisa Kudrow, Natalie Portman, The Other Woman, willBlue Valentine is now out on DVD. I worked with the writer-director, Derek Cianfrance, and one of its editors, Jimmy Helton, here at the Video Station circa 1997. It was great to work alongside of them, and in those days, Derek was a young guy working on his first big project, Brother Tied. Brother Tied [...]
Read More blu-ray, Blue Valentine, Derek Cianfrance, drama, DVD, Jimmy Helton, Michelle Williams, R, romance, Ron Patane, Ryan GoslingThe Illusionist isn’t just the long-awaited second feature from Sylvain Chomet, the French animator who made 2003′s charmingly grotesque, hauntingly comic Triplets of Belleville. It’s also, in a sense, a new film from the great mime artist turned genius director Jacques Tati (Playtime, Mon Oncle), who died in 1982. Adapted from a semi-autobiographical script Tati [...]
Read More animation, blu-ray, comedy, drama, DVD, Jacques Tati, PG-, Sylvain Chomet, The Illusionist, willJolene is one of those little independent movies that introduces us to a new star without really being a great film itself. It’s certainly not unwatchable–it’s shot fairly well and it has an engaging enough cast–but it kind of drifts from scene to scene without any strong momentum. The title character is played by Jessica [...]
Read More blu-ray, Chazz Palminteri, drama, DVD, Jessica Chastain, Jolene, Michael Vartan, R, will
