[8] Dreams are a notoriously difficult thing on which to base a movie. In dreams there are no rules, no parameters — and in movies about dreams, writers and filmmakers are often all too eager to take advantage of our suspension of disbelief — because in dreams, hey? Who the hell’s to say what could or could not happen, especially if the contrivance pushes the …
[9] My favorite Pixar film features two robots who say little more than each others’ names, but somehow, as if by magic, WALL-E manages to convey more emotion than films that try twice as hard to do so. There’s a charming purity in the characters of WALL-E and EVE, who to differing degrees struggle against their ‘directives’ to form a bond. The fact that these …
[10] Director Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, Magnolia) serves up a masterful study of two ambitious men — a turn-of-the-century oil prospector driven by capitalism and a young preacher eager to grow his flock. The two men come to conflict on occasion, with the prospector’s young son often caught in the middle. But as times of prosperity drift closer to the Great Depression, the prospector …
[10] I love road movies and ensemble pieces, but Little Miss Sunshine goes one step further by saying something we all need to hear from time to time: it’s okay to fall short of ambition. The film throws six disparate personalities, all family, into a Volkswagen bus for a weekend road trip so that the youngest of them can compete in a junior beauty pageant. …
[9] Guillermo del Toro’s fantasy masterpiece is a volatile blend of whimsy and horror that dares to explore the depths of human evil through the eyes of an innocent child. The film is brutal, heartbreaking, and gorgeous. Del Toro’s unique style is on full display here, in the conceptual design, the fluid camera work, and in the delicate performances. Young Ivana Baquero gives a solid …
[9] Martin Scorsese helms this dramatic thriller about an undercover cop (Leonardo DiCaprio) and a gang mole in the Boston police (Matt Damon) who race to uncover each other’s identities while a powerful mobster (Jack Nicholson) manipulates them both to his own, nefarious advantage. The Departed, inspired by the true story of Irish mobster Whitey Bulger, hits the ground running and never lets up on …
[9] Martin Scorsese directs Leonardo DiCaprio in this biopic of Howard Hughes, the billionaire aviator, filmmaker, and playboy whose considerable ambition was tragically counterbalanced by his mental illness. The Aviator opens with Hughes’ mammoth, three-year-long production of the aerial battle movie Hell’s Angels and his budding romance with Katharine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett). He makes considerable advances in the field of aviation and challenges the movie …
[10] Peter Jackson (Dead Alive, The Frighteners) embraces the Herculean task of bringing Tolkien’s supreme fantasy to the silver screen, and hits a home run. The Fellowship of the Ring gets the trilogy off to a strong start, as Frodo Baggins and his companions set off to destroy the One Ring. Jackson is faithful to the source material while masterfully balancing action, horror, heart, and …
[9] The Hours is a fascinating exploration of three women living in different times and different places, each of them struggling to find their personal bliss against the pressures and expectations of marriage and motherhood. The film is a meditation on death and sacrifice — obviously not the kind we associate with men on the battlefield, but the quiet, stifling kind suffered by people, traditionally …
[9] A racist, alcoholic prison guard finds himself falling in love with an African-American woman who just happens to be the widow of a man he helped to execute in this film from Marc Forster (Stranger than Fiction, Finding Neverland). Halle Berry is stunning in her Oscar-winning performance, but so is the rest of the cast, including Billy Bob Thornton as the prison guard, Heath …
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