[6] An HIV-positive man kidnaps a former fling and forcibly tests him for the virus, ready to exact revenge if the test results are positive. Scott Speedman (Felicity, Underworld) plays the aggressor and James Marsden (X-Men, Enchanted) plays the victim. The film is directed by Tony Piccirillo, who also wrote the stage play on which it is based. The main problem with the film is …
[7] Closer features some of the most incredible dialogue I’ve heard in a long time, and the cast are all rock-solid in what boils down to a messy four-way of sexual and romantic entanglement. It’s a slick, polished, elegant film from Mike Nichols (The Graduate, Working Girl, Primary Colors). What keeps me from reveling in such a well made film is the subject matter. Closer …
[6] Oliver Stone’s epic bio of the Macedonian military legend, like so many pet projects, is a glorious mess of a movie. The screenplay goes back and forth in time, mixing scenes of Alexander’s youth with scenes of his conquests. The result is jarring, never allowing you to get to know the character in any time. The narrative also relies far too much on Anthony …
[9] Neill Blomkamp’s stellar directorial debut is an unpredictable blend of intelligence, emotion, and cinematic whoop-ass that defies convention and leaves you breathless. It begins like a documentary, outlining how a race of stranded aliens (the space kind) came to be ghettoized in South Africa. We follow a character named Wikus, a bumbling government agent who is tasked with herding the aliens to a new …
[9] Hellraiser fans rejoice. This is the best Clive Barker movie in twenty years. Director Ryuhei Kitamura hits the nail on the head (or the meathook through the ankles) in his handling of the story, which centers around an urban photographer (The Hangover‘s Bradley Cooper) in search of brutal subject matter. He finds what he’s looking for after stalking a stern-looking butcher onto a subway …
[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 …
[8] Before winning the Oscar for directing Slumdog Millionaire, Danny Boyle gave us Sunshine, a riveting, futuristic sci-fi thriller about a crew of scientists’ desperate plight to rejuvenate the sun. Anything can and does go wrong during the mission, forcing the crew into some of the toughest life-and-death decision making they’ve ever faced. With humankind’s existence hanging in the balance, the stakes couldn’t be higher. …
[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 …
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