George (Matt Damon) meets a French TV journalist (Cecile de France) during a book tour in Clint Eastwood’s supernatural drama “Hereafter.” This movie may be as close to “Sleepless in Seattle” as Clint Eastwood ever gets. His spiritual drama “Hereafter” begins with a harrowing act of God a tsunami wipes out an entire island village […]
Monthly Archives: October 2010
‘Stone’ a hard drama to embrace
Parole officer Jack Mabry (Robert De Niro) has a frank chat with prisoner Stone (Edward Norton) in the drama “Stone.” To watch Robert De Niro and Edward Norton arguably two of the best film actors of their respective generations play characters verbally wrestling each other for control of a simple conversation becomes one of the […]
Arresting performances give ‘Conviction’ its power
Betty Anne Waters (Hilary Swank) talks to her brother Kenny (Sam Rockwell) before he goes to jail in the fact-based drama “Conviction.” The performances are better than the material in Tony Goldwyn’s fact-based drama “Conviction”, and the material was pretty good to begin with. “Conviction” (a great title for its obvious double meanings) traces the […]
Action comedy ‘RED’ blasts aging stereotypes
Frank Moses (Bruce Willis), left, fights off assassins with Marvin (John Malkovich) and Victoria (Helen Mirren) in the action film “RED.” I walked into Robert Schwentke’s “RED” thinking I would see a silly, geriatric revisiting of “The A-Team” or “Mission: Impossible.” I got a crazy, off-the-charts, action comedy lamenting how society shoves aside senior citizens […]
‘Grave’ unleashes rabid revenge fantasy
Jennifer (Sarah Butler) becomes victimized by a violent gang in Steven Monroe’s remake of 1978’s “I Spit on Your Grave.” I cannot defend Steven Monroe’s remake of the 1978 exploitation horror benchmark “I Spit on Your Grave as a great work of art, or barely a work of art at all. But at least his […]
‘Kind of a Funny Story’ a low-key comedy
Craig (Keir Gilchrist), left, befriends a patient (Zach Galifianakis) in a hospital ward in the comic drama “It’s Kind of a Funny Story.” It’s kind of funny, yes. Kind of serious, too. Kind of sad as well. Mostly, it’s kind of restrained and keeps its characters at an elbow’s length, just enough for us not […]
Lame ‘Secretariat’ deserves to be shot
Penny Chenery (Diane Lane) and Lucien Laurin (John Malkovich) cheer for their favorite racer in the under-horse sports drama “Secretariat”. If this movie were a horse, it would be shot. You know, for being lame. Randall Wallace’s hokey, worshipful horse operetta “Secretariat” comes to the big screen practically devoid of dramatic conflict, an essential ingredient […]
Face value: Witty ‘Social Network’ a telling portrait of our times
Best pals Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), left, and Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) engage in legal disputes over the creation of Facebook in David Fincher’s “The Social Network.” David Fincher’s superbly wrought “The Social Network” robustly chronicles the messy birth of that cultural, economic, political and sexual game-changer called Facebook, and does it with style, wit […]