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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
If you don't have time to read the FULL TEXT REVIEW of "OBLIVION"-- check out my :30 Second Review with video for a short, smart critical assessment of Tom Cruise's latest--and get the bottom line fast!
The latest Tom Cruise film OBLIVION in which the superstar once again saves the world is a muted, muddled sci-fi fandango that finds Tom tangling with his identity. There are those who think the now eerily youthful looking Cruise seems more plastic than ever. No matter how many times I've see him on a talk [...]
