I have always loved this musical onstage, but was never so miserable as when I sat through all 157 minutes onscreen. LES MISERABLES--despite some exceptional musical performances--dies a torturous death by close-up at the hands of tone-deaf director Tom Hooper. "LES MIS" as we familiarly call it, is the theatrical extravaganza put to music by [...]
We saw. We met. We voted. The BOSTON SOCIETY OF FILM CRITICS (BSFC) has just announced its awards for the best films, performances, and technical achievements in 15 major categories for 2012! Topping the list with three awards is director Kathryn Bigelow's ZERO DARK THIRTY about the ten-year hunt for Osama bin Laden which won BEST [...]
In a season that features at least one remarkable presidential portrayal--here comes another, and this one definitely the wackier. An Irish/Englishman playing Lincoln is one thing, but America's unofficial court jester and one time king of Caddy Shack is another kettle of acting entirely. Once you get over the shock of seeing Bill Murray as [...]
The most ravishing movie of the season is ANNA KARENINA , novelist Leo Tolstoy's sweeping pageant of love, marriage, passion, family, God, nature, and the constraints of class and society in 19th century Russia. The elegantly beautiful Keira Knightley stars as ANNA KARENINA who falls in love with a young, rich, good-looking cavalry officer, Count Vronsky. [...]
If you're in touch with your inner adolescent girl--and I am-- you'll love THE TWILIGHT SAGA:BREAKING DAWN- PART 2. I know it's been savaged in The Globe by Wesley Morris-- and many other critics. But honestly, having Wes review this film is like sending Andre the Giant to a pajama party--it's just not his milieu. [...]
The opening sequence of SKYFALL is a mind-boggling, ass-kicking, death-defying Rube Goldberg variation involving a speeding car, chasing a speeding train, carrying a giant front loader, with 007 and his nemesis-of-the-moment locked in combat and dangling by their fingertips, heading for an overpass, with a sniper looking to take one of them out! I nearly [...]
Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker performed by the Mariinsky Ballet Theatre! Don’t miss your chance to share this holiday tradition with your family in movie theaters for one day only on December 3! Tchaikovsky’s holiday classic is being brought to movie theaters nationwide by NCM Fathom Events and More2Screen to celebrate the holiday season. SEE LIST BELOW [...]
I have seen LINCOLN-- and he is Daniel Day-Lewis. This is an absolutely flawless performance, which together with Spielberg's direction, Tony Kushner's screenplay, based in part on Doris Kearns Goodwin's book TEAM OF RIVALS, and a treasure trove of vivid performances -- has resulted in one of the finest movies of the year, and one [...]
It's hair-raising-- but DON'T MISS this FLIGHT! It's an unexpectedly emotional, quiet, faintly pious, but deeply engrossing dramatic thriller, which stars a slightly paunchy Denzel Washington as a veteran airline pilot named Whip Whitaker; he's as cocky as his name. He struts down the gangway, immaculate in uniform, sunglasses on, baby. In fact, he's cruising [...]
If you missed it at film festivals in Tribeca, or Toronto, or Sundance--you can catch it in DOHA! The tiny but super-wealthy Middle Eastern emirate of QATAR- of which DOHA is the capital- is importing western-and world culture-- like it's going out of style. Several US colleges and universities now have campuses in DOHA, among [...]
