[6] Natasha Lyonne (American Pie, But I’m a Cheerleader) leads an esteemed ensemble cast in writer/director Tamara Jenkins’ story of a 1970s teenager coming of age on the outskirts of Beverly Hills. The family is struggling to make ends meet, always moving out of apartments before the rent is due. Alan Arkin plays the father, a divorcee with a gambling problem. David Krumholtz plays Lyonne’s …
[6] This is a SPOILER REVIEW. Writer/director Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan, Requiem for a Dream) makes a claustrophobic allegory of the Bible’s story of creation, the fall from grace, all the way up through the birth of Jesus and beyond. He does it with Javier Bardem playing God and Jennifer Lawrence playing a hybrid of Mother Earth and the Virgin Mary (or women/mothers in general?) …
[6] Writer/director Eliza Hittman takes us inside the secretive life of a teen boy trying to figure out if he’s straight or gay. He’s clearly attracted to men and hooks up with several older ones he meets online. But he’s also interested in at least trying to be straight, especially when a girl on the New Jersey boardwalk takes a liking to him. It’s not …
[7] Three orphans grow up together as brothers under the care of a kindly benefactor. When they’re old enough, they join the Foreign Legion, but their dreams of adventure are dashed when a sinister sergeant turns their first outpost into a last stand. There are shades of Gunga Din here, but it’s not nearly as carefree or uplifting as that movie. The final act is …
[7] This isn’t the romanticized WWII of modern cinema, it’s probably closer to the real thing. The Story of G.I. Joe is based on print journalist Ernie Pyle’s interviews with soldiers in the field. Pyle was in the foxholes with them, and he was in it for the long haul. His newspaper column became the public’s window into life on the battlefield. William Wellman’s (The …
[4] Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons star in dual roles, as Victorian lovers and the actors portraying them in a film production. The parallel storylines are a tedious gimmick. We’re told half way through the movie that in one story, the lovers will get together and in the other, they won’t. Problem is, I don’t give shit about the characters in either storyline. I love …
[8] Contact is a message-driven movie that may be too esoteric for a lot of mainstream moviegoers. It’s a character-driven drama with only a few moments of your typical blockbuster spectacle — but I applaud the movie for daring to tangle in an exploration of science vs theology. Jodie Foster gives an impassioned performance as Ellie Arroway, an astronomer (and atheist) who discovers a message …
[8] Oliver Stone’s Platoon was one of the first major motion pictures to deal with the Vietnam war. Charlie Sheen stars as an infantry volunteer who finds himself in a moral quandry, torn between two sergeants of differing philosophies. Tom Berenger and Willem Dafoe give solid, Oscar-nominated performances as the two sergeants, but it’s the director’s voice that comes through most strikingly in Platoon. As …
[7] The Box is weird, anachronistic, and indulgent, but I’d be lying to say I didn’t dig it. This is the third film from writer/director Richard Kelly, who created a cult phenomenon with Donnie Darko, but then flopped big time with the scatter-brained Southland Tales. The Box is intrinsically retro, based on an episode of the original Twilight Zone TV series (“Button, Button”, written by …
[8] At first sight, you might mistake Footloose for just another teen rebellion movie, but Herbert Ross’ (Steel Magnolias) sensitive direction and committed performances from John Lithgow and Dianne Wiest help the film transcend its genre. The story about a town where dancing has been outlawed sounds ridiculous at first, but screenwriter Dean Pitchford and the cast treat the premise with disarming sincerity. It was a …
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