After five years of faithful attendance at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival I am prepared to let it pass me by this year. Part of the reason is the lackluster quality of the films I have seen the last two years. For several years, festival entries dotted, and even topped, my Top Ten lists; […]
I felt I was wallowing in a Vogue feature, every shot was oh-so-glamorous – and just as artificial. Nothing in the story computed, however. The “Counselor” was a cipher: there was no clue why Penelope Cruz loved him, why Javier Bardem or Brad Pitt befriended him, what he was doing in the movie or where […]
A feeling of weightlessness, enhanced by my 3-D glasses, set in with George and Sandra’s first roll in space and remained the identifyingly unique feature of this otherwise generally weightless survival story. Actually, the less said about the story itself, the better. Somehow, Sandra Bullock’s character changes from a somewhat incompetent space traveler who crashed […]
A movie director’s first obligation to his audience is to provide appealing, or at least interesting, characters. Not far down the list, however, is providing dialogue that the audience can understand. I don’t want to sit there thinking, what did he say? – even if, as in this movie, it probably doesn’t matter. (If I […]
Wow! – a movie about real people and real relationships; no fancy sets or photography, not even gorgeous movie stars. Julia Louis-Dreyfus is the personification of needy, but in her usual winsome way, and the teenagers are convincing teenagers (I loved Chloe). The movie’s anchor, though, is the late, great James Gandolfini. When he says, […]
Joseph Gordon-Levitt is not my favorite actor (viz., Lincoln, Premium Rush), but his intelligence illuminates this fun story of a porn addict who has to learn that giving yourself in love is better than meaningless sex. The supporting actors are all sensational, in the style of Silver Linings Playbook, and the surprisingly non-erotic use of […]
A formulaic movie about Formula 1: every cliche of the sports movie is rolled out, with only the world of auto racing offering any novelty. The close-ups of the drivers and their cars are riveting, and Chris Hemsworth and the two leading ladies are easy on the eyes; but in the end we are left […]
It’s hard to know how “realistic” a movie set in 2154 is, but the scenes of LA were reminiscent, in a good way, of Johannesburg in director Neil Blomkomp’s prior, better movie, District 9. Matt Damon on Earth was more convincing than Jodie Foster up in Elysium, but what is consistent in all these adventure […]
Not a bad movie, but an absurd mess. I say not bad because there was a lot of beauty, and if you know a lot about kung fu those parts might have been interesting. All I know about kung fu after watching this movie is that it doesn’t make you sweat, it allows you to […]
This movie about troubled youths in…exactly what kind of facility?…exposed my lack of empathy, as I didn’t find myself caring about anyone on-screen. Brie Larson had a Cate Blanchett-type role, but as much as I enjoyed watching her I couldn’t believe her character. First, she was absurdly perfect and self-controlled as a counselor tending to […]
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