As a lover of movies on sports and racial equality, I expected this to be an easy winner. Instead, I found the sports incomprehensible and the race relations so clichéd that I left wondering how a movie about Nelson Mandela could be so uninspiring. Morgan Freeman was impeccable, if boring, but Matt Damon was a […]
Avatar the Experience was seamless: I never questioned whatever world it was the 3D glasses helped transport us to. Was it any more remarkable a cinematic experience than Lord of the Rings, though? Or, for that matter, The Wizard of Oz, which we watched on TV last week? (The flying enoks of Pandora seem to […]
Absurd from start to finish, this disaster film contained not a single enjoyable scene, and it was barely kept afloat by its snippets of memorable, albeit too predictable, ‘60s music. It was especially disappointing coming from Richard Curtis, who contributed to such prior favorites as Love, Actually, Notting Hill and Four Weddings and a Funeral. […]
The Harvard Lampoon used to put out issues that struck its editors, but few others, as hilarious. I felt in the presence of similar “inside” humor as I watched Mr. Fox trot on down the hill in post-Roadrunner cartoon style. Obviously, when you hire George Clooney and Meryl Streep to voice your characters more is […]
A Rorschach blot of a movie: Is the depiction of Precious’s life courageous or demeaning? Is she a winner, for overcoming obstacles, or still a loser, facing life as a grotesquely overweight HIV-positive unwed mother of two (one with Down’s Syndrome)? Is her rescue by a special-ed teacher thrilling because it is so unique, or […]
A harrowing portrait of a poor Mexican girl who happens to be an illegal-immigrant-to-be. The story doesn’t emerge as hers until after a first half that is caught up in gang violence and initiation. Echoes of other Latin American stories – Amores Perros and Maria Full of Grace in particular – are unavoidable, with Gomorrah […]
You don’t have to be an admirer of Michael Jackson or his music – and I am neither – to be awed and amazed at the level of professionalism that was going into his comeback concert, and has now been preserved in this skillful film by concert director Kenny Ortega. If you thought MJ weird […]
Timothy Spall is not your normal love interest, in a buddy pic no less; nor is it usual to find a biopic about a soccer coach failing big-time, although the film adds a true-life documentary PS that shows everything coming out right. After portraying Tony Blair and David Frost in somewhat similar equivocal roles, Michael […]
Carey Mulligan was charming and believable (cf. Ellen Page in Whip It) as a 17-year-old who is wise beyond her years, but still a few years short of what is needed. The older man who picks her up, played by Peter Sarsgaard, had a corresponding charm, but there was a hole in the character’s credibility. […]
Just when I thought there couldn’t be a scene more unbelievable than the last, Ellen Page and her Ashton Kutcher boyfriend found an unguarded indoor swimming pool, dove in with all their clothes and shoes on and proceeded to make love in an underwater ballet. Two years after playing a teen in Juno, Page, by […]
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