[6] Clint Eastwood tackles one of the most hackneyed of all movie subgenres, the race-the-clock death row rescue thriller, and breathes at least enough life into it to keep you engaged. Isaiah Washington puts in a good performance as the innocent man sentenced to die. His scenes with his wife (Lisa Gay Hamilton) and daughter are the movie’s best. The cast also features Denis Leary, …
[7] Monica Belluci and Vincent Cassel star in Gaspar Noe’s brutally graphic exploration of rape and revenge told in reverse. The subject matter is worth exploring and the narrative device is interesting, especially toward the end, which carries the full weight of the film’s character development. It makes you look back over everything you just saw and reinterpret it. I just wish the camera weren’t …
[6] Moderately entertaining supernatural drama from director Clint Eastwood. The film follows three separate story lines that come together in the end. Matt Damon plays a reluctant psychic who can commune with the dead; Cecile de France plays a news reporter who has a near-death experience in a tsunami that opens the film; and Frankie and George McLaren play twin brothers separated by death. The …
[4] Also known as Quartermass and the Pit, this subdued sci-fi flick centers around a famous scientist, Bernard Quartermass (Andrew Keir), who is called to London to investigate a mysterious object and the strange effect it has on anyone who gets near it. I usually enjoy Hammer Films, but this one nearly put me to sleep. There’s some payoff, and a nice bleak ending, but …
[6] Ryan Gosling plays a young prosecutor pitted against slicker-than-snot Anthony Hopkins, representing himself in a trial where he’s accused of murdering his wife. Hopkins is about to get away with everything, but Gosling is determined to poke a hole in Hopkins’ seemingly air-tight alibi. The casting is safe and predictable, but the script is fairly tight and twisty, and kept me engaged to the end. With …
[6] Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara star in the second adaptation of the Stieg Larsson novel about a journalist and a computer hacker who work to solve the mystery of a missing woman. Is there perhaps something wrong with the fact that The Social Network is more exciting than The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo? People looking at computer monitors and holding board meetings shouldn’t be …
[6] Steven Soderbergh directs what is probably the most believable, realistic approach to a deadly epidemic movie that I’ve ever seen, but that doesn’t necessarily make it the best movie. The building action is the film’s strong point, and primarily because you can easily imagine these things happening — runs on grocery stores and banks, looting, people boarding up in their homes, states closing their …
[6] Mira Sorvino, Jeremy Northam, Josh Brolin, and Charles S. Dutton star in this creature feature about evolved cockroaches that threaten to overtake New York City. Director Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth) admits that the film’s narrative was watered down by a series of studio concessions, but it still highlights his visual flair and palpable atmosphere. The creature work is an admirable combination of puppetry …
[8] It’s so refreshing to watch heroes and villains who are over the age of 40. Skyfall repeatedly suggests that sometimes older is better, and I couldn’t agree more. Daniel Craig’s third turn as James Bond is at least as good as his first, Casino Royale. Javier Bardem makes an excellent villain and we also get to enjoy Judi Dench in a full co-starring role …
[6] This light-hearted murder mystery isn’t likely to stick in your memory, but should satisfy Errol Flynn fans well enough. Flynn plays an author who writes under a secret identity — so secret even his wife and mother don’t realize it is he who is responsible for a scandalous novel that has recently put polite society up in arms. As life imitates art, Flynn finds …
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