Remember 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, willIt may share the same plot and title, but this souped-up remake of the 1972 Charles Bronson/Jan-Michael Vincent thriller The Mechanic is really just another excuse for action star Jason Statham to shoot guns and kick butt, albeit one that director Simon West (Con Air) shoots and edits with energetic efficiency.
Read More action, Ben Foster, blu-ray, crime, DVD, Jason Statham, Simon West, The Mechanic, thriller, Tony GoldwynArriving on the 50th anniversary of its events, Freedom Riders is an account of those first months of the American Civil Rights movement, specifically Birmingham in 1961. Fresh off of 2 separate Supreme Court desegregation decisions that had been ignored by large swaths of the South, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) organized peaceful protests, [...]
Read More Bruce, documentary, DVD, Freedom RidersBlue 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 GoslingThis started out as a smarmy review of No Strings Attached. I’m not proud, I pre-judged the movie based purely on Ashton Kutcher. I don’t like him. Can you really blame me?
Read More Ashton Kutcher, blu-ray, comedy, DVD, Greta Gerwig, Kevin Kline, Mindy Kaling, Natalie Portman, No Strings Attached, Noah, R, romanceThe 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, willMind-bending indie director Michel Gondry (The Science of Sleep) proves so capable at crafting crackling action sequences in the $120 million big-screen version of The Green Hornet that it’s a shame star Seth Rogen had to go and ruin the rest of the movie.
Read More action, blu-ray, Cameron Diaz, Christoph Waltz, comedy, crime, DVD, Jay Chou, Michel Gondry, PG-13, Seth Rogen, The Green HornetJolene 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, willWith few exceptions, the films that tackle historical periods and their figures best are those that attack their subjects a bit obliquely. When asked to summon a cinematic image of D-Day, for instance, most might think first of Saving Private Ryan, which merely uses Omaha Beach as the visceral prologue to a relatively small-scale (and [...]
Read More Alexandre Desplat, biography, blu-ray, Colin Firth, Danny Cohen, David Seidler, Derek Jacobi, drama, DVD, Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter, History, King George VI, Lionel Logue, R, The King's Speech, Timothy Spall, Tom HooperI don’t have kids, so I can only imagine what it would feel like to suddenly lose one. Rabbit Hole, a pretty-looking piece of Oscar bait starring Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart, means to show us such pain, but doesn’t wholly succeed.
Read More Aaron Eckhart, blu-ray, David, Dianne Wiest, drama, DVD, John Cameron Mitchell, Miles Teller, Nicole Kidman, PG-13, Rabbit Hole, Sandra Oh