| Movie | Rating | Review | Date | Your Rating | Match | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Los Abrazos Rotos (Broken Embraces) (Broken Hugs) - R | Yes, it IS more of the same-- but who cares? If, thematically, Broken Embraces is a bit on the thin side, merely satisfied by its musings on the lack of communication and the role of memory, and aesthetically, it recycles the well-known Almodovar tropes almost to the point of self-parody, his latest film nevertheless gives us an enormously diverting insight into his own creational patterns; that is somethings none of his previous work presented to us so directly. A dazzling concoction of melodrama and cinema history, it all unfolds into a quick-witted mashup of stylistic quirks and characters that are drawn in-between real human beings and sardonic pasquinades. A real treat, though a predictably sketched one. Penelope Cruz is as sensuous and beautifully tormented as always, and Blanca Portillo's nuanced turn as a film director's agent sneaks up on you and shines brightly. | December 26, 2009 | N/A | |||
| 88 Minutes - R | 88 Minutes' shittiness is unrelenting, and it escalates all the way to one of the most head-smashingly stupid (and obvious) climaxes of a whole decade of filmmaking. May be worth watching for a healthy amount of what-were-they-thinking script blunders, or for all-around crapawful acting (with Sobieski phoning in a career-worst performance, and Pacino & his giant fab hair coming at a close second), but really, it's worthy wondering how something this heinous and riddled with such enormous plot holes got funded. | December 21, 2009 | N/A | |||
| I Am Legend - PG-13 | It's an impressive technical achievement alright, and its ability to keep the tension cranked up at a reasonably high level makes this thoroughly conventional blockbuster climb slightly above the standards of the usual Will Smith freak-out actioner. But it's a pretty shallow motion picture down the line, and its vacuity starts to show itself in the last third, where everything is melodramatic speeches and self-sacrifice and determined stares. Still, it's a decent American money-spinner, one that's crafted with skill and proves itself to be truly effective at times, even though it probably won't linger in your brain very long after it's over. Also : the CGI is of largely varying quality. Now THAT'S a shocker. | December 20, 2009 | N/A | |||
| 30 Days of Night - R | Top-notch photography and sure-handed directing still cannot save this endless vampiric carnage from its lack of urgency; there is no sense of being cut from the rest of the world-- just an interminable bloodbath that drifts into boredom past the 1-hour mark. Indeed, all the kills and situations can be seen coming a mile away, the resolution is pure rubbish and the tension operates only sporadically. Even if the cast delivers honest, (though somewhat stoic) performances, their characters are all caricatures. They inspire no sympathy. Anyways, what's absolutely clear is that director David Slade needs a better script, and fast. | December 20, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Wendy and Lucy - R |
I deeply, deeply love this film. Reichardt has crafted a masterful meditation on solitude and the emotional cost of living close to the bottom of the social pyramid. Excised of all miserabilism and self-pity, Wendy's quest in accessing her own liberty is nothing less than deeply affecting, especially during these harsh economical times. It's a dramatic, minimalist film that demands both patience and appreciation for what's not immediate, but for those that enjoy quiet and slowly revealing cinema, there is much to be adored in this one. It's refreshing to have a reminder that we often let the plot and narrative drive stand between us viewers and the character. Reichardt also spares us the gritty, worn-out look that usually passes for 'realism' these days and coats her film with beautiful (though not showy) photography and long, expressive silent takes. Capped with a magnetic and beautifully internalized performance by Williams, Wendy and Lucy might perhaps be one of the most powerful offerings of the year. My full review in French at : http://www.panorama-cinema.com/html/critiques/wendyandlucy.htm |
December 19, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Fantastic Mr. Fox - PG | Bursting with inventive punchlines, textured landscapes & interiors, genuine moments of sweetness, exceptionally sympathetic characters and an infectious sense of amusement, Fantastic Mr. Fox leaves the viewer with the impression that animated cinema has just found itself an exciting new medium even though stop-motion films have been around for years. You also get the impression that Wes Anderson has found an ideal art form to catalyze his stylistic preoccupations, where family, friendship, community, quirky humor and the cluttered, retro mise en scene all blend together in a typically offbeat package. Delicious from start to finish, with one of the most successful gag ratios of 2009-- and, while we're at it, also probably one of the best movies of the year. | December 14, 2009 | N/A | |||
| See No Evil - R | Pure slasher formula, conceived and executed no better or no worse than everything it lazily rips off. Considering the horror genre isn't exactly at its peak, you could certainly find a whole lot worse than See No Evil in the market right now-- but that doesn't change the fact that this slapdash WWE production is all-around lousily written, badly acted and absolutely forgettable, except for a few mildly inventive kills. | December 14, 2009 | N/A | |||
| The Twilight Saga: New Moon - PG-13 |
Far, far worse than it has any right to be-- The Twilight Saga : New Moon is a soulless, brain dead rush job that barely tries to hide its own vacancy. Carried by weak, effortless performances from its three leads (Pattinson taking home the top honors in the stiffness competition), written in obvious shortcuts and with a perversely sullen tone, plagued with unintentional laughs and directed by a slumming Chris Weitz who is without a clue how to inspire romanticism or a sense of urgency, this is book-to-film adaptation at its most uninspired, heinous state.
All the angry, articulate commentary in the world won't change New Moon's overwhelming badness. Really. My best friend sitting next to me, at one point, couldn't help herself but sigh ''how crappy is this movie''. I could not agree more. |
December 9, 2009 | N/A | |||
| The Wicker Man - PG-13 |
Neil LaBute's useless and faintly misogynistic remake of the 1974 chiller borders on the awful. If it were not for well-handled camerawork and retained elements from the original's ironic screenplay, we would have a serious contender for worst movie of 2006 right here. As much as Cage and Burstyn kick and fight their way out its horrid screenplay, the ending result is just profoundly clunky and embarassing for all involved.
Oh, yeah, and the best moments are already on YouTube anyway, so don't bother with the 'but it's unintentionally hilarious!'' thing. |
November 29, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Silent Hill - R | Silent Hill almost, ALMOST works as a motion picture of its own by the sheer power of its twisted imagery and its consistently forebonding atmosphere. Alas, the narrative is poorly structured, overlong and fairly disjointed, and despite the best efforts of the very intense Radha Mitchell in an underwritten role, most viewers will have stopped caring long before the conclusion kicks in. Horror fans, though, will get a kick out of the atrocious gore splashes here and there and the impressive visuals, that's for sure. So, in the end, it's not totally worthless-- which in the horror genre can often mean pretty good. | November 29, 2009 | N/A | |||
| The Descent - R | Downright scary-- a modern horror film that overcomes the familiarity of its plot to tell a brutal, emotionally draining and fairly exhausting story. Drawing impressively physical performances from its all-female cast, Neil Marshall's film touches themes of motherhood and trust without ever losing its focus on its lead goal : scaring the holy bejesus out of the viewer. Make sure to watch the original cut for a few more crucial seconds of disturbance. | November 29, 2009 | N/A | |||
| 28 Weeks Later... - R | A lot more visceral but thoroughly less meditative than Boyle's 2003 film, Juan Carlos Fresnadillos' 28 Weeks Later is a rare animal indeed-- a sequel that achieves the same level of greatness than its predecessor but in radically different ways. With a bigger set-pieces, bloodier attacks scenes, a helluva lot more ''gotcha!'' jolts but a weaker grip on its characters, the picture really succeeds in drawing the viewer straight into its nightmarish continuation of the original scenario. Surely to rank among the strongest horror offerings of the decade, right along with its first chapter. | November 29, 2009 | N/A | |||
| 28 Days Later - R | Boyle's glacial, nerve-wrecking apocalyptic freak-out owes much of its success to a sharp, intelligent script, which keeps the scare tactics and character development in equal parts. Surprisingly not grounded in typical Hollywood morals where good guys and bad guys are catalogued as soon as they're onscreen, 28 Days Later puts our very own humanity in a position where anyone can turn into death itself in a matter of seconds-- can you imagine how fast our survival instincts kick in, and how feeble our civilized sympathy turns once confronted by it? Less preoccupied by jump scares than it is with generating feelings of desolation and despair (but still creepy as hell) and anchored by four flat-out excellent performances-- that would be Eccleston, Murphy, Harris and Gleeson-- 28 Days Later is nothing short of a hypnotic, memorable piece of work, and definitely an instant classic in the zombie genre. | November 29, 2009 | N/A | |||
| The Cove - PG-13 | At times revolting and astonishing but at others slightly too sentimental for its own good, The Cove is nevertheless brutally effective in parts thanks to a methodical, driven approach to its subject, i.e. dolphin and whale slaughter. Will most likely anger viewers on a topic they had never really seriously taken position before, and that is entirely the point. O'Barry makes for a genuinely likeable onscreen presence and director Louis Psihoyos definitely exploits that-- his film is also brisk, intermittently suspenseful and well-shot. Worth seeing. | November 29, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Darkness Falls - PG-13 | Save for a notoriously effective opening sequence and one moderately eerie scene in its final third, Darkness Falls has all the trappings of a modern horror stinker, right from its pervasively dark production design to its seen-it-before jolts and plot points. Helmed by mediocre acting all-around and shot without distinction, it has ver, very little to offer even to horror fans. Skip this one. | November 29, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Gothika - R | Kassovitz wrings a couple of effective scares out of a truly botched screenplay, but his film's success is largely intermittent : there are no real surprises to be found in how the plot unfolds, and soon enough Gothika becomes little more than another stylized asylum-based chiller. Berry's nervy but workmanlike performance doesn't really add or take anything from the final product, much like her co-stars'. | November 29, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Donnie Darko - R | Richard Kelly's vision is halfway between rigid and fuzzy, and the mixed messages may not fully stick with the viewer, but once this twisted little tale firmly grounded into the teenage condition (and the failure of the American Dream) lands its hook in you, it's a long way until it lets go. If you like'em creepy, imaginative and borderline incomprehensible, Donnie Darko is absolutely for you. | November 23, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Georgia Rule - R |
It's hard to believe, but Georgia Rule is by fits and starts quality filmmaking; a chick flick that doesn't use emotional pornography as its first weapon, one that minimally focuses on the fluffy romantic parts and that, thankfully, teaches the viewer a valuable, if not particularly new, life lesson. If a large part of it is undone by Garry Marshall's tone-deaf directing (this is a story about sexual abuse, for fuck's sake, not a rom-com), but there are indeed more than just a few shades of earnest humanism here and there. A lot of these are due to Lindsay Lohan's sharp and unsurprisingly convincing performance as a hard-partying teen diva with a vast sense of entitlement, but I swear to God there were spasms of actual great writing burning through the usual Hollywood bullshit here and there.
Either way, it's not particularly worth checking out since Fonda and Huffman are clearly on auto-pilot, and that costs Georgia Rule-- a lot-- but it isn't the godawful three-generational women's picture that hideous poster might have suggested. Sort ot. |
November 23, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Zombieland - R | Even though it spends most of its time dillydallying between riotously funny and fitfully amusing, Zombieland feels too short by at least fifteen minutes. That, my friends, is a sign of quality filmmaking, nine times out of ten. Populated by hugely likeable characters portrayed by hugely likeable actors (Harrelson and Stone gaining the top honors), Zombieland is absolutely nothing less than the humorous and occasionally sweet undead shoot'em up it is advertised as. If Ruben Fleischer's directorial debut plays it safe cinematically, it nevertheless handles its action scenes with clarity and imaginative visual punchlines. I can't picture anyone coming out very dissapointed out of a film like this one-- that is, if they can forgive said extremely breezy running time. See it. | November 23, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Lymelife - R |
The answer to the question on your mind right now : yes, Lymelife is very much the middling Suburban Angst Film its poster and trailer would have you believe, and little else. Its depiction of a two seemingly quietly troubled families nestled in a quietly troubled 70s middle-class existence has all the trappings of a Sundance-pressed indie, and not in a fairly positive way. Besides a knack for stately but glum atmospheres and typically subtle work from Baldwin and Hutton, the only revelation here is Rory Culkin as a needy and hormonally charged teenager whose only relief from all that repressed emotion comes in painful, short-lived explosions.
Nope, I am not willing to give the Martini brothers' debut film a hearty recommendation solely because it is centered around a softly devastating performance, backed by solid work from everyone else in front of the camera. There are so many familiar productions of the genre one can take before wondering if that particular hollowness has lost its impact when presented onscreen, after all. I did not expect to particularly 'enjoy' a film that covers territory this bleak, but I did wish to feel something during the occasional shades of levity and tenderness that were supposed to have an impact beneath all the alienation. Lymelife, unfortunately, kept me at arm's length for most of its running time, and that comes with a cost : a final stamp that, as usual, signals not outright failure but mediocrity. |
November 21, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead - Unrated |
Even by lazy DTV sequel standards, Wrong Turn 3 : Left for Dead stands out as an unfathomably awful film. It truly has nothing to do with the slipshod trashiness of the first film, nor with the gaudy splatter fun its surprisingly decent second serving presented back in '07. This relentlessly terrible cash-in could quite possibly rank among the lousiest motion pictures I have ever seen, even though I hesitate to call it a movie on its own. I cannot recall anything remotely positive about my viewing experience, let alone a couple of chuckles at the magic crappiness of the CGI work on the would-be 'shocking' deaths.
This is the kind of film that makes you depressed at all the time, money and ressource that was wasted on its production, and that makes you even more depressed to have lost own precious hour and a half. This is a gigantic finger to all horror fans out there, and absolutely nothing else. |
November 21, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Monster-in-Law - PG-13 | Pretty stupid, actually. Like you'd expect, Fonda totally steals the show, but there lacks a whole lot of panache and inventiveness in this run-of-the-mill comedy to make her big-screen return worthwhile. | November 19, 2009 | N/A | |||
| The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - PG-13 | I have curiously lost all interest in this. I have read so much about it I feel I have already seen the whole damn thing. Don't ask why. | November 18, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Vicky Cristina Barcelona - PG-13 |
I can't help it : I loved it. No, it is not the stuff that dreams are made of-- it does not, for instance, reach the heights of Allen's beloved 70s triumphs. Still, I cannot believe how swept away I was by the entire project.
For starters, not perhaps since Manhattan has Woody been so obviously enchanted by the place in which his story occurs. I'd already been to Barcelona before, and his camera captures the spirit of the city marvelously : the magic lasts, until it fades. It's heartbreaking, it's sincere, it's gorgeous. Without getting too showy, the cinematography by Javier Aguirresarobe couldn't be better. In terms of writing, Vicky Cristina Barcelona's structure (and slightly mocking narration) might remind you of the man's previous projects. It's more about talking than showing, unsurprisingly, but there are plenty of touches that give his much-anticipated 38th project a distinct magic : lusty closeups, shorter takes and waaaayyyy more naturalistic dialogue actually causes Vicky Cristina Barcelona to ring much more truthfully than expected. Despite the existential themes it delicately touches, we're not really dealing with philosophical standpoints, but actual characters. Ultimately, the question is... how far can we allow love to take us? Obviously, the cast is a great help, the obvious stand-outs being Bardem and Cruz, both perfectly at ease in their character's shoes, and for the latter, generating both excitement and awe in all of her terrific mood swings. Johansson, now officially the most beautiful woman on the planet, has a much softer role, which she inhabits very well. Her gorgeous physicality suggests a golden-age starlet, which is probably why Woody can't get enough of her lately. But for me, the true standout is Rebecca Hall : being the true heart of the film, she nuances her performance with incredibly skill and honesty. Like Kate Winslet, she prove herself to be a fabulous reactor and inter-actor. All in all, here, it's not about hitting the perfect note with a final punch like Match Point. It's not about delivering a gift-wrapped thesis on a subject that seemed particularly interesting : it's the sum of all those gorgeous parts, though not breathtaking, that make this film so fine. Fine : this is exactly what Vicky Cristina Barcelona fully achieves. Not great, nor excellent : just fine. Fine is more than okay with me. |
November 18, 2009 | N/A | |||
| Dummy - R | Dummy's characters are such a pleasure to watch interact that Pritikin's very lightweight dramedy qualifies as a great time. It's no surprise that Douglas and Brody shine in every scene they appear in, but the big revelation here is Jovovich, showing some serious comedic chops as the raging-against-the-machine, ratty-haired, camouflage-wearing Fangora. Well worth a look. | November 18, 2009 | N/A |
719 ratings
712 reviews
