[7] Viggo Mortensen travels with his young son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) across a post-apocalyptic wasteland in this bleak drama based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy. The premise is intriguing, far more than the movie dares explore, even with an R-rating. The storyline hangs on the intimate relationship between father and son. Viggo is frighteningly open with the boy, explaining how they’re going to have to …
[6] This particular adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s book ends on a morally ambiguous note (I don’t think children should ever be lied to), but the film is otherwise passable family entertainment. Jimmy Lydon does a decent job as Dan, the angry young man who comes to live with Jo March (Kay Francis) at her experimental school/farm for boys. The film works best when it …
[5] You know this story by now, even if you haven’t seen the movie: Girl meets vampire, girl wants to screw the vampire, but vampire is too good for that shit. I don’t generally like a story where one character pines obsessively over another (which is why I don’t like most John Cusack movies), so when two characters start pining obsessively, I’m bound to be …
[7] Ingrid Bergman won the first of her three Oscars for this psychological thriller from George Cukor. Bergman plays a woman increasingly traumatized by her husband, a thief who nearly succeeds in convincing her that she’s losing her mind. It’s easy to invest in a movie when someone’s being mean to Ingrid Bergman. I only wish that she were more empowered in the story’s third …
[4] A young soldier (Guy Madison) struggles to find purpose to his life after returning home from service in WWII. The guy’s problem isn’t as clear as I’d like it to be. His friends (Robert Mitchum and Bill Williams) have obvious injuries, but Madison’s character seems to suffer from nothing more than laziness. The film sometimes works as a soap opera, but I hate to …
[6] A bold film for its time, A Summer Place deals with sexual awakening and reawakening. Sandra Dee and Troy Donahue play the teenaged lovers; Richard Egan and Dorothy McGuire play the adulterous middle-aged ones. The first forty-five minutes of the story are pretty strong, but once the affairs are out in the open, the script struggles to find its focus. Highlights include a terrific …
[7] Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly are at the top of their game in A Beautiful Mind, Ron Howard’s Oscar-winning biopic about John Nash, the brilliant but haunted mathematician who overcame schizophrenia and received the Nobel Prize. These are the best performances I’ve seen from Crowe and Connelly — their relationship is the glue that holds the film together. The first two-thirds of the movie …
[7] John Ford reteams with frequent leading man John Wayne in what is often considered one of the best Hollywood westerns ever made. Wayne plays Ethan Edwards, a loner returning home from the Civil War. After his brother’s family is murdered by Camanches, Ethan begins a five-year search for his kidnapped niece (Natalie Wood). Wayne plays more than a charicature of himself for once, bringing …
[4] Director David Slade (Hard Candy, 30 Days of Night) tries to elevate the material to Lord of the Rings status, with several gratuitous aerial fly-over shots and a suitably brooding score from ‘Rings’ composer Howard Shore. But, somehow, infuriatingly, and against all probably odds, Eclipse is still an interminable snooze-fest. The first three-quarters are like New Moon all over again (ie, Chinese water torture). …
[6] Eastwood directs and stars in this Western tale of revenge. The most interesting thing about Pale Rider is the mysterious nature of Eastwood’s character, a preacher/gunfighter who enters a mining colony’s life in answer to a young girl’s prayer. The film suggests he might be a ghost, and without this ambiguity, the movie is pretty standard genre fare. Bruce Surtees gets kudos for making …
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