“The Italian Job,” 2 March 2010 (2003), DVD. A lesser-heist film with a cool car chase starring Mark Whalberg and Charlize Theron. Donald Sutherland walks through his early bits. The film is like a knockoff of the “Ocean’s” franchise and, well, it’s just not good.
Thirteen Days
“Thirteen Days,” 29 January 2010 (2000), VHS. We both enjoyed this Kevin Costner potboiler about the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. I think they play it like it was, too harsh on Nikita K, but spot on about the US military’s desire to go nuclear and end the world. At least one gets…
The Wrestler
“The Wrestler,” 22 January 2010 (2008), DVD. We both liked this 2008 look at a professional wrestler in decline. Mickey Rourke (he’s fantastic) and Marissa Tomei (marvelous) star as Randy “The Ram” Johnson a 1980s star long dimmed (much like Rourke himself who brings great sensitivity and courage to essentially playing a version of himself on…
The Hangover
“The Hangover,” January 15, 2010 (2009), cable, Yikes, this crude guy flick has some very funny moments but OMG, we were dumb enough to watch it with Bronwen and her friends, Emma and Leah in Borrieland (Long Island). Probably another film not to watch with your 15-yo daughter. Funny but very crude. Won the Golden…
Blind Side
“Blind Side,” December 25, 2009, theater. We all liked this Sandra Bullock film about Michael Oher, the Baltimore Ravens tackle who was adopted by a family as a homeless youth. Worth seeing. Bullock just won the Golden Globe for best actress for this one [Later won the Oscar. Why?]
Ghost Town
“Ghost Town,” 19 October 2009, DVD. Ricky Gervais is mildly amusing as Bertram Pincus, an antisocial dentist who dies during a colonoscopy and is revived only to find he can see the dead who died with things unresolved and they can see him. One, a sleazy stock guy played by Greg Kinnear, wants him to…
Wendy and Lucy
“Wendy and Lucy,” 2 August 2009 (2008), DVD. Very fine, small film about class, gender, love, aloneness, and America. Wendy is a young woman driving from Indiana to Alaska where, she hears, they need people. She has little money as she reaches a depressed little city in Oregon. She’s arrested for shoplifting, her…
Away From Her
“Away From Her,” 28 July 2009 (2006), DVD. We both really appreciated this study of a couple coping. Fiona (Julie Christie) is slipping rapidly into an Alzheimer’s Disease dementia while Grant (Gordon Pinset) struggles to keep her both present and with him. Very Canadian film made with silences and thoughtfulness. She loses her…
Man on Wire
“Man On Wire,” 23 July 2009 (2008), DVD. The story of Philippe Petit as he planned and executed his World Trade Center tightrope walk of 1974. Inspired to walk from the moment he heard about the buildings, he staged this amazing hack with the aid of a loving and devoted band of followers….
Rachel Getting Married
“Rachel Getting Married,” 22 July 2009 (2008), DVD. We both really enjoyed this Jonathon Demme story about a junkie on leave from rehab who’s attending her sister’s wedding. The beautiful Anne Hathaway (Kim) stars in this story of family love and dysfunction, the difficulties of coming to terms and accepting responsibility faced by…
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” 21 July 2009, theater. We enjoyed this 6th installment in the series, although I was more underwhelmed than Bronwen. She didn’t read the book. The settings are all fine, the quiditch is exceptional, the acting is adequate (although Dumbledore is too sweet in this one, he’s actually…
Role Models
“Role Models,” July 15, 2009 (2008), DVD. Whoops! B, b and I started out watching this Whoops! B, b and I started out watching this incredibly crude R-rated sex farce (I hadn’t noticed we were watching the unrated version) about two guys sentenced to community service helping troubled youth. Not a film for a dad…
Slumdog Millionaire
“Slumdog Millionaire,” July 15, 2009 (2008), DVD. We liked this somewhat formulaic Oscar winner about a tea deliverer from the slums of Mumbai who competes for millions on India’s version of who wants to be a millionaire. The poverty is palpable. The questions lead us through two decades of his very hardscrabble life. We…
He’s Just Not That Into You
“He’s Just Not That Into You,” 15 June 2009 (2008), airplane. Mediocre chick-flick about wealthy white 30-somethings decoding love and language. Nice acting by a group of hot gen-y-ers but the film is largely irrelevant unless you’re still a true believer in the lies young people tell one another to avoid a second date or…
The Greening of Southie
“The Greening of Southie,” 22 April 2009 (2008), DVD. This was an interesting documentary on the pluses and minuses of building/working on Boston’s first real ‘green/environmental’ building, a luxury apt building in Southie, Boston. Good takes of workers, contradictions of local and global inputs.
Who Killed the Electric Car?
“Who Killed the Electric Car?” 5 April 2009 (DVD). Well meaning documentary about the short-lived electric cars of California. They were killed by the companies, the oil firms, the state board (chaired by someone committed to hydrogen), the feds, and consumers who didn’t leap to buy a commuting car. Interesting, a bit clunky, but…
Flash of Genius
“Flash of Genius,” 3 April 2009 (2008), DVD. We all (B, b, and I) liked this painful but very interesting study of Robert Kearns (Greg Kinnear), the engineer who successfully developed the intermittent wiper system only to have it stolen by Ford and used by every other manufacturer. He is obsessive and not an…
Be Kind, Rewind
“Be Kind, Rewind,” 29 March 2009 (2008), DVD. Silly and, in parts, very funny comedy with Jack Black and Mos Def about a Passaic, NJ video store. In depressed Passaic, Black becomes magnetized and clears all the images in the store’s video. Def, the clerk, and he set out to satisfy customers by making their…
Changeling
“Changeling,” 21 March 2009 (2008), DVD. This rough film from Clint Eastwood stars Angelina Jolie as a mother in 1928 whose son disappears. She is desperate to get him back. The police substitute another kid. Indeed, the institutional corruption of the police is a key theme in the movie and is handled very well….
Wall-E
“WALL-E,” 8 March 2009 (2008), DVD. We all liked this interesting Pixar animated film about a robot become sentient after seven hundred + years of trash compacting on the now deserted, polluted, trash laden earth. The citizens have gone off into space (at least those who could). A new bot, EVE, comes to…
Hellboy 2: The Golden Army
“Hellboy 2: The Golden Army,” 5 February 2009 (2008), DVD. Sad to say, nowhere near as interesting or playful as “Hellboy”. This sequel didn’t have the verve or intensity. Skip it.
Juno
“Juno,” 18 January 2009 (2007), DVD. We both enjoyed this story about a 16-yo girl. (Ellen Page) who gets pregnant on the first time with Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera), a sweet, loving, genuine, nice, smart, track-running kid. They have a punk band as well. Very well acted, crisply written. Oh, I wish all kids…
The Third Man
“The Third Man,” January 17, 2009, DVD. Set in early post-war Vienna, this noir tale of corruption and deceit stars Joseph Cotton, a young Trevor Howard in a great role as a British army MP Lt, and an astounding performance by still beautiful Orson Welles. The scene on the Ferris wheel where Cotton and Welles…
The Savages
“The Savages,” 10 January 2009 (2007), DVD. I liked this dark comedy with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney more than Bronwen did. A brother and sister, he a professor of drama (Brecht specialist), she a struggling playwright, are called to Sun City to retrieve their 80+ yo father (Philip Bosco) as he declines…
Breach
“Breach,” 30 December 2008 (2007), DVD. We watched this somewhat conventional spy thriller down at my mom’s in NJ. It’s certainly watchable: Chris Cooper is intense as Robert Hanson, the FBI agent/spy who caused incalculable damage to US security interests in the US and overseas because he could, Ryan Philippe as the young…