Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven shows what remained of the director’s interest in more traditional forms of storytelling. Like his more recent films, beautiful cinematography and stream of conscience voice over narration are dominate. Missing are the elements that some would label as self-indulgent. I won’t go quite that far, but let’s just say that …
Category Archives: Entertainment
Way late review: Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
What was Brad Bird (director of cartoon magic like The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, and Ratatouille) thinking when he grabbed the reins of Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol? For all its star power and name recognition, Mission Impossible is often just what its title says. I am stunned that Bird did what others could not …
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Way late review: Like Crazy
Capturing the raw emotion of two people who believe they’ve found love at first sight is no small challenge for any film. Like Crazy attempted to do it on a relatively slim budget. And let there be no doubt, capturing the feelings of a couple who fall in love and then struggle to cement that …
Way late review: The Descendants
Watching dramas about characters thrown into tragedy along with their dysfunctional families can often be funny and not necessarily because laughs come at their expense but because they confront us about some (often painful) truth about ourselves and those around us. The Descendants is such a film. Matt King (George Clooney) is a lawyer who …
Let’s get this thing done – Only the Young
At the True/False film festival this year I saw some great documentaries. There are two that I tell everyone about. One of those is Only the Young, a film about a few ordinary teenagers in Southern California living their lives and growing up right before the camera. It doesn’t sound like an amazing premise and …
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Way late review: A Better Life
Proving that making a point doesn’t have to happen as a result of preaching, A Better Life successfully tells the simple story of an illegal immigrant Carlos (Demián Bichir) who struggles to make ends meet while keeping his teenage son, Luis (José Julián), away from the gangs of East L.A. There is no doubt, A …
Way late review: Take Shelter
After working closely with those impacted by and helping out with the aftermath of a devastating tornado I’m not crazy about watching films that have tornadoes as a central prop. Take Shelter is more about a man struggling with losing his sanity than it is about the storms around him, whether they be real or …
Way late review: Grizzly Man
Timothy Treadwell and Werner Herzog were made for each other. Unfortunately their meeting meant the death of Treadwell, as Herzog’s Grizzly Man documents Treadwell’s life and death at the paws of the grizzly bears Treadwell felt were his surrogate family. Knowing how things end makes Grizzly Man an uncomfortable watch, not because we get to …
Way late review: The Adventures of Tintin
2011’s scariest movie of the year, The Adventures of Tintin? Maybe not, but the animation style first made popular by the just as terrifying Polar Express is not comforting. Even more disconcerting is Tintin’s orange on a toothpick head. His boyish looks mashed up with his Bourne like skills don’t make sense. Every other character …
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Way late review: Hugo
Martin Scorsese’s love letter to cinema, Hugo, is like most love letters – full of passion, often beautiful, yet lacking in anything resembling a cohesive narrative. Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) is an orphan who keeps the clocks ticking behind a train station in Paris. Why he and almost everyone around him have British accents is …