Archive for the ‘Movie Reviews’ Category
[review]: Valkyrie
United States, 2008
Directed By: Bryan Singer
Written By: Christopher McQuarrie, Nathan Alexander
Starring: Tom Cruise, Tom Wilkinson, Kenneth Branagh, Christian Berkel
Running Time: 120 minutes
Rated PG-13 for violence and brief strong language
3.5 out of 5 stars
Every year, December rolls around, and every year, we get the usual glut of movies that really, really, really, want to win Oscars. It’s simply a foregone conclusion, and that little statuette has been around long enough that people know by now what the Academy likes. And one of the things that it likes is, of course, World War II. Read the rest of this entry »
[review]: Ghost Town
United States, 2008
Directed By: David Koepp
Written By: David Koepp, John Kamps
Starring: Ricky Gervais, Téa Leoni, Greg Kinnear
Running Time: 102 minutes
Rated PG-13 for some strong language, sexual humor, and drug references
4 out of 5 stars
Ghost Town is a film that’s somewhat obviously inspired by M. Night Shyamalan’s hit 90’s horror film The Sixth Sense, and it makes no bones about that — going so far as to use the tagline “He sees dead people…and they annoy him.” As the second half of the line suggests, however, Ghost Town is about as far from a horror film as this sort of story gets. The ghosts here bear no gruesome marks to indicate how they died (although they do wear whatever they died in — making things a bit awkward for those that died in the shower or while engaged in coitus), and you won’t hear a single bloodcurdling scream. No, Ghost Town is a simple romantic comedy — and a very good one, at that.
[review]: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
United States, 2008
Directed By: Andrew Adamson
Written By: Andrew Adamson, Christopher Markus, and Stephen McFeely; from the novel by C.S. Lewis
Starring: Ben Barnes, Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, William Moseley, Anna Popplewell, Liam Neeson, Eddie Izzard
Running Time: 144 minutes
Rated PG for epic battle action and violence
4.5 out of 5 stars
Those who are of the opinion that C.S. Lewis wrote The Chronicles of Narnia as an allegory designed to convert children to Christianity (I’m looking at you, Phillip Pullman) would be well advised to check out Prince Caspian, the latest entry in the eponymous film series (by the way, they should also look up the word “allegory”—but I digress). Make no mistake about it—Lewis, as a former atheist, wrote just as much out of doubt as he did out of faith, and his books were no mere morality plays. Caspian in particular is a dark meditation on the coming of age—the story of children realizing that fairytales simply aren’t true. At the center of it all is the question of what humanity can do when its God has left it alone on the earth. In other words, this ain’t kid stuff; nor is it particularly “religious.”
But it is truth. Read the rest of this entry »
[review]: The X-Files: I Want to Believe
United States, 2008
Directed By: Chris Carter
Written By: Chris Carter, Frank Spotnitz
Starring: David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Bill Connolly, Xzibit
Running Time: 104 minutes
Rated PG-13 for violent and disturbing content and thematic material
3.5 out of 5 stars
Movies based on television shows generally fall into one of two categories: either they’re direct continuations of the show that wind up in theaters shortly after the show is cancelled, or even while it’s still on the air (The Man Called Flintstone), or they’re what might be called “re-imaginings,” released decades after the show ends, in a cynical attempt to cash in on the nostalgia of past fans (The Flintstones). Then there’s that nebulous third sort, like The Nude Bomb (sorry, I ran out of Flintstones examples) — the sort that come out within a decade of the show’s end, having given the show’s fans enough time to forget about it, but not enough time to wax nostalgic. Even for those who root for them, it’s hard not to admit the timing is strange, if not downright bad. This can easily color perceptions of the film, and, as you might expect, the new X-Files flick is no exception to this.
But if you’re worried about that, I’m your man, as I guarantee I was the most ignorant person in the audience at the screening I attended of The X-Files: I Want to Believe. I never got around to watching more than a few minutes of the TV series (what can I say, except that it was on TV during the 1990’s — which all took place within the first 15 years of my life, and were arguably a golden age of TV cartoons?). I never even attempted to watch the first movie. I hadn’t even read any reviews of the new film. In other words, my thoughts are the least biased you’re likely to hear. Read the rest of this entry »
[review]: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
United Kingdom, 2008
Directed By: Mark Herman
Written By: Mark Herman, from the book by John Boyne
Starring: Asa Butterfield, Jack Scanlon, Amber Beattie, David Thewlis, Vera Farmiga
Running Time: 95 minutes
Rated PG-13 for some thematic marterial involving the Holocaust
3 out of 5 stars
Making a World War II-themed film is a prospect fraught with peril, in no small part because filmmakers have been churning them out since the moment World War II began. It’s hard to imagine that there’s really that much left to say about the conflict, and while the occasional film (Saving Private Ryan and Life is Beautiful come to mind) proves me wrong in this respect, most ultimately fail. Compounding the problem is the fact that the war is one of the few moments in history that is seen by most in stark shades of black and white. The Holocaust, along with other atrocities committed by the Axis powers, was a purely evil thing, and regardless of whatever failings can be ascribed to the Allies, it’s hard not to love them for putting an end to it. In other words, it’s not a very nuanced time of history, unless you’re ready to say that mass genocide can sometimes be justified (and five bucks says you’re not). Read the rest of this entry »
[review]: Bolt
United States, 2008Directed By: Chris Williams, Byron Howard
Written By: Chris Williams, Dan Fogelman; from a story idea by Chris Sanders
Starring: John Travolta, Miley Cyrus, Mark Walton, Susie Essman
Running Time: 96 minutes
Rated PG for some mild action and peril
5 out of 5 stars
There was a time when Disney was on top of American animation. Heck, they were American animation (at least on the big screen) until about 1966, when Walt died. Then they began to lose their way and lost market share to Don Bluth (who left Disney with a bit of a chip on his shoulder), Dreamworks and Jeffrey Katzenberg (who left Disney with an enormous chip on his shoulder) and Pixar (who almost left Disney with big chips on their shoulders). And despite a very brief (and very over-heralded) renaissance in the late 80’s and early 90’s, they’ve found themselves scraping the bottom of the barrel in recent years, churning out the obligatory Talking-CGI-Animals-with-Celebrity-Voices movies that are just as bad as those of their countless imitators. Read the rest of this entry »
[review]: Nerdcore Rising
United States, 2008
Directed By: Negin Farsad, with Kim Gatewood
Written By: Negin Farsad
Starring: MC Frontalot, G Minor 7, Blak Lotus, Sturgenious, MC Chris, Optimus Rhyme, MC Lars, NurseHella “Weird Al” Yankovic, Prince Paul, Brian Posehn
Running Time: 80 minutes
Not Rated
3 out of 5 stars
Music is a fickle thing, and every time a band innovates, someone is there to invent a new word for their “genre.” This is especially true with genres that people like to describe with the word “hardcore,” a word which lends itself well to portmanteaus. Hardcore punk that incorporates metal and industrial influences becomes “grindcore”; emotional hardcore punk is “emocore” (or emo, for those who are truly phonetically lazy); hardcore rap with slasher-film-inspired lyrics is “horrorcore”; and bizarrely, the fusion of hardcore rap and heavy metal is somehow “rapcore.”
Well, say hello to yet another. Read the rest of this entry »
[review]: House
United States, 2008
Directed By: Robby Henson
Written By: Rob Green, from the novel by Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker
Starring: Reyanldo Rosales, Julie Ann Emery
Running Time: 110 minutes
Rated R for some violence and horror
3 out of 5 stars
“Gee honey, wouldn’t you know it? Our car broke down!”
“And on this dirt road in the middle of nowhere, too!”
“Well, it’s pouring rain, but there’s no sense in waiting for it to let up!”
“That’s right! Let’s start wandering blindly!”
“Good idea!”
“Hey, here’s an old abandoned-looking hotel that seemingly appeared out of nowhere! Looks nice! Let’s stay the night here!”
“I agree with that thinking!”
“It sure looks haunted! But luckily, there’s no such thing as ghosts.”
[review]: Moscow Zero
Spain, 2008
Directed By: Maria Lidon
Written By: Adela Ibanez
Starring: Vincent Gallo, Val Kilmer
Running Time: 82 minutes
Rated R for language
2.5 out of 5 stars
I almost never give the rating of a film much of a glance, but when I picked up the DVD of Moscow Zero, the little MPAA-sponsored box on the back caught my eye. Moscow Zero is rated R “for language.” Not for violence, or gore, or even terror. Not even for “obscene language,” or “mild language,” or one of the other completely arbitrary adjectives they occasionally tack onto the word. This struck me as particularly odd, since the box art insists that Zero is a horror film about “the gates to the underworld [being] opened.” I’ve never been the sort to insist that my horror movies have some sort of minimum gore quotient (I’ve always thought that those that show less, like the original Cat People, are much more effectively scary), but it seemed to me as though the horrors in a film about “the gatekeeper of Hell” would at least warrant a mention in the rating descriptors.
[review]: Transsiberian
Spain, 2008
Directed By: Brad Anderson
Written By: Brad Anderson, Will Conroy
Starring: Woody Harrelson, Emily Mortimer, Ben Kingsley, Kate Mara, Eduardo Noriega
Running Time: 111 minutes
Rated R for some violence, including torture and language
3.5 out of 5 stars
It turns out Ben Kingsley still can make a good movie — consider me pleasantly surprised. After his embarrassing turn in The Love Guru and the disappointing The Wackness (not to mention Elegy, which I haven’t yet seen but have heard mixed things about), I was starting to lose faith in the ol’ guy. Then I saw the surprisingly entertaining thriller Transsiberian (a coproduction of Spain, the U.K., Lithuania, Germany and China), and my faith was restored. Don’t let me oversell it — Transsiberian is far from being a great film, and I certainly wouldn’t recommend it to everyone — but it was a nice little surprise. Read the rest of this entry »
