Category: Film Reviews

Painful and depressing supposed teen comedy about two high school girls who say a resounding no to just say no. Well-acted by all, but the drug and alcohol abuse are brain and soul numbing for the consumers and the viewers. The sex is meaningless and exploitative. If all teen relationships are so empty then long…

Pedro Almodovar does a straight romance novel comedy. Not a special film. Too straight. Blech. Subtitled

Prequel 3 in the Star Trek saga. Kirk (Chris Pine) is bored with his 5-year mission and may want out, and thinks that, perhaps, Spock should replace him. But Spock’s going all last Vulcan on us and thinking of leaving. That all gets put aside as the crew of the Enterprise sallies forth to rescue…

Quirky Australian black comedy about a pair of remarkably odd sisters (twenty-somethings) who vie for the affections of an oft-married and divorced dj who moves in next door in their outback community. His pseudo-philosophizing will have you cringing in your seat and their naïveté will leave you more perplexed than bemused. Surprising ending, to say…

Quirky doesn’t even begin to describe Jim Jarmusch’s cinematic style. Once again, he looks at immigration in a gritty city as he did in his early film, “Stranger Than Paradise,” where Cleveland rocks. Once again a unique, sometimes gentle and playful sense of humor suffuses his vision of life in America. In “Paterson,” he follows…

Rather flat Kevin Costner film about a minor league golf pro. Sound familiar?. Well this “Bull Durham” knockoff is just that. Sort of boring, occasionally funny, and watchable only to be able to see Cheech Marin. He’s good, the movie’s not

Rather second-tier Coen brothers but, as with all their work, very well-crafted, directed, and acted. It’s a bit sour, but with some very funny parts Good acting by exceptional pros (Clooney, Pitt, McDormand, Malkevich, Jenkins, Swinton, and others) The plot is classic, convoluted Coen. Affairs galore among the middle-echelon of the nation’s security apparatus come…

Only occasionally funny, nasty piece about a beauty contest in Lutheran Minnesota. Kirstie Allie is the over-the-top stage/contestant mother with the rich spoiled brat daughter. Painfully boring to watch her. Can’t she simply be barred from the big screen?. Ellen Barkin is the trailer-trash mom with the sweet kid, Amber. Competitor/contestants and boys uninterested in…

Oskar Shell (Thomas Horn) is 11 when his dad (Tom Hanks) dies in the Twin Towers on 9/11. Oskar is different, a genius but wracked by fears and, perhaps Aspbergers Syndrome (not clear but very likely). His mom, Sandra Bullock, is struggling to make it through and now care as a single parent for this…

Other marginals, most notably Mark Braun (the ever-more wonderful Steve

Michael Moore’s latest look at our strange and sad society. This one takes on guns and gun abuse in the US. A few wonderful bits, the best was a look at a bank that gives out guns for opening an account in Upper Peninsula Michigan. There are also some fine interviews with militia guys who…

Mike Leigh’s post-“Lies and Whispers” return to the small, intimate films that look at interaction. A good film, but I felt it too complete, that is, too many coincidences are used to tie everything together. It looks at the development from freshman year to their late-20s of two intense young women. Well acted with some…

Minor Jim Carrey vehicle watched with

My first trip to a movie theater in months. I really enjoyed this futuristic but utterly accessible, sly, thought provoking excursion from Spike Jonze. It follows a lonely, professional personal letter-writer, Theodore (a fine performance from Joaquin Phoenix) as he seeks to move on from his failed marriage. He establishes a unique connection with his…

Newsguy can’t get it right and feels God has deserted him. God (Morgan Freeman) makes him God for his local area to show him how hard it is to be God. Moralistic, sentimental, some raw language. One “fuck” and a couple of “shits” Other than that, it’s ok for the kid. Mediocre but a good…

Nice ensemble work about alcoholism, AA, and the people at one meeting. Features Richard Lewis, Faye Dunaway, Diane Weist, Spaulding Gray in a superb bit, Howard Rollins (tragically—he died of. alcohol and drugs), and a very nice supporting cast including Parker Posey. A bit stagey at times and Lewis sometimes overacts (it’s a screenplay from…

Nice piece by Henry Jaglom about a film actress paying a visit to an over-the-top NY theater family at their summer home in the Hamptons. About the tension between theater and film people/environments. Who knows how tightly scripted it was, but it is very well done. Lots of great improv work. Fine jobs by Vivica…

Nice to see director

OK look at the Ali-Foreman fight from 1975 in Kinshasa, Zaire. I actually think this was overrated as a PC homage to Ali and boxing. I liked it less than others did

Ok, so this wasn’t my first choice of a film for the evening. My daughter wanted to see it and we wanted to watch something with her, hence the selection Still, it could have been much worse than this bitter-sweet morality tale/comedy about a recent college grad (Annie, Scarlett Johanson) with no sense of what…

Oliver Stone’s football as war spectacular with good acting by a grizzled Al Pacino as the head coach, Jim Brown as an assistant coach, Jamie Foxx as the upstart young quarterback, and Cameron Diaz as the MBA-holding owner of the Miami team who inherits the club from her father. Good small parts from Lawrence Taylor,…

On ok film version of the children’s story about a young girl and the dog she finds who changes her life and the life of her father, a poor Baptist preacher (Jeff Daniels). It is a kid’s film but has an ok little bits by Eva Marie Saint and Dave Matthews (who sings the title…

One Israeli’s animated documentary look at the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Excellent and profoundly honest and brutal film. Nominated for Oscar, it’s a unique look at a horrible history. Personal, detached, intimate and universal, it struggles to understand guilt and responsibility in young, old and society as a whole. It doesn’t assert Palestinian purity so…

My apologies

Little Bronwen and her friend Katherine liked this story of a fish world at the bottom of a reef with its shark mobster rulers and its timid fish and crustaceans. The adults in the room didn’t like it. It’s nowhere near as good as “Finding Nemo”. The hero, Will Smith’s Oscar, works at a whale…