[7] Emile Hirsch and Kieran Culkin put in great performances in this odd coming-of-age film about best friends who are constantly rebelling against their Catholic school teacher, a one-legged nun played by Jodie Foster. I like that the characters, even Foster’s antagonistic one, aren’t one-sided. The film suggests the boys are out of control, but also that they have plenty to rebel against. I expected …
[7] While it lacks the pervasive chill that runs through The Silence of the Lambs, Red Dragon is a well-made thriller that engages from beginning to end, thanks to a briskly-paced script adaptation by Ted Tally (who won an Oscar for his treatment of Lambs). This is a prequel to the time Lecter met Starling, and also a re-make of Michael Mann’s stylish 1986 film …
[8] Martin Scorsese unleashes this epic tale of 1860s New York City street battles, with Leonardo DiCaprio starring as a young man with a vendetta against the near legendary Bill the Butcher (Daniel Day-Lewis). See, DiCaprio’s character saw Day-Lewis’s character kill his father in the big opening battle scene, and then DiCaprio’s character goes away for a while. Once he’s of age, he comes back …
[6] Part two of George Lucas’ Star Wars prequel trilogy is still cluttered and over-produced like the previous installment, but it’s a modest improvement over part one, thanks in large part to a solid final act. But man, oh, man, do you have a long tedious slog to get to that third act. Lucas and co-screenwriter Jonathan Hale bank on cross-cutting story lines (ala Empire …
[3] Relatively low production values and a lack of originality mar this soft-core teen sex comedy. Jay Michael Ferguson stars as a guy pining after a girl (Allison Lange) he eventually gets to have a date with. That’s pretty much it, folks. The tone is a bit muddled — the jokes are most often childish enough that when the movie pulls out a raunchier one, …
[5] George Clooney directs this quirky tale based on the possibly true story of Chuck Barris, creator of The Dating Game and The Gong Show, and who may also have been an assassin for the CIA. That is, if we’re to believe his memoir. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is an okay movie, anchored by a solid leading performance from Sam Rockwell. But I had …
[4] SPOILER REVIEW Within the first half-hour of Abandon, a police detective (Benjamin Bratt) asks an ambitious college student (Katie Holmes) about her missing boyfriend. The college student doesn’t seem to care that her boyfriend is missing, so I immediately thought, hmmm… I bet she killed him. And she did. Boy, do I hate being right. Especially when the rest of the entire film is …
[8] This 2002 classic, period-piece rendition of Charles Dickens’ Nicholas Nickleby is sweet, sentimental, and beautifully executed. I personally found it irresistible. Charlie Hunnam (Sons of Anarchy, Pacific Rim) is perfectly cast as Nicholas, a young man who discovers his own strength of character when called upon to defend his family and friends from villainy. The main villain is his own uncle, played deliciously by …
[7] Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead) takes the reigns and casts Tobey Maguire as the famous web-slinging superhero. The script is ripe with pointed dialogue, but I’ll be darned if the cast don’t pull it off more often than not. Raimi’s approach is decidedly ‘comic booky’, full of color and frenetically paced, with all the grace notes and emotional high points bent toward operatic. As …
[7] An aimless playboy and a dorky middle-schooler become friends through serendipity in About a Boy, based on the book by Nick Hornby and directed by Chris and Paul Weitz of American Pie fame. Hugh Grant plays the playboy, coasting on royalties from a famous song his father wrote. Nicholas Hoult, who would later grow up to later star in X-Men: First Class and Warm …
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