Two quick reviews before the weekend! NOAH is a crazy film by Darren Aronofsky (THE FOUNTAIN, BLACK SWAN) manifesting the filmmaker's trademark tussle with the unknowable and a feverish attempt to reconcile good and evil, faith and fear, while yoking the otherworldly to concrete reality. Russell Crowe as Noah gets the message to build an [...]
The race is ON! Chris "Thor" Hemsworth helped hammer home the 86th Oscar nominations with Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs and the results are pretty much as I expected: AMERICAN HUSTLE and GRAVITY tied for most nominations--10 each, followed by 12 YEARS A SLAVE with 9! What I'm delighted about? Matthew McConaughey. It's his year [...]
I like THE HUNGER GAMES: series, and the second installment, CATCHING FIRE--despite a colleague's calling it "a long slog"--absolutely held me. Once again, the charismatic Jennifer Lawrence as the reluctant firebrand Katniss Everdeen continues to rebel against the capitol. Having out-witted the powers that be in the first Hunger Games--a TV spectacle in which children [...]
ALL IS LOST--Robert Redford's latest as a man alone and adrift at sea-- plays like an extended Viagra commercial. You know-- older, handsome outdoorsman testing his mettle against the elements; there's a broken mast involved. I know, I know. It's Redford--and there's already Oscar buzz about this performance and this movie. Well, I know what [...]
What is it about Sandra Bullock and one-word titles that place her at the mercy of out of control modes of transport? In GRAVITY the vehicle is a space "bus" of sorts, thousands of light years away from the earthbound thrills of the movie that put her on the map--SPEED. Written and directed by Alfonso [...]
I have just seen the first OSCAR WORTHY performance by an actress this year-- or any year: Cate Blanchett in BLUE JASMINE--Woody's latest and absolutely one of his best films, ever. It's become a cliche that writer/director Woody Allen's work had hit the doldrums critically for a bit, and lately, everything he's doing has been [...]
I've yet to see THE WOLVERINE and believe I am the LONE CRITIC who loved THE LONE RANGER. Here's the best & worst of the rest so far: 20 FEET FROM STARDOM--This revealing, heartbreaking documentary charts the careers, hopes, dreams, disappointments of the back-up singers who literally stand inches away from center stage-the voices behind [...]
Hi -yo SIL-L-L--VER!! It's the best blockbuster of the summer to date! THE LONE RANGER rides again in a funny, exhilarating, verbally and visually witty action adventure that dares to be beautiful! The movie tells how it all began: Who was that masked man? What's with Tonto? And what does "Kemo Sabe" mean anyway? For those [...]
This time around, Superman has not only lost his red underpants, he's lost his identity-- and he used to have two! Remember Christopher Reeve's charming, bumbling Clark Kent who kept his cape under wraps around Margot Kidder's sassy Lois Lane, that is-- just until he'd explode out of his glasses and suit in order to [...]
Loved this--and I am not a Trekker, have never been on a spacecraft, or had an out of body experience (OK maybe once) but I love an exciting cinematic romp through outer space, and after seeing STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS I left the theater feeling like my car was the Starship Enterprise (and if you [...]
