[7] It’s 18th century France and everyone’s the Vavavoom de Floofenberg dressed to the nines and powdered like a doughnut. Yes, Dangerous Liaisons is one of those dreaded costume dramas. But like any good one, if you strip away the gilding and highfalutin language, it’s really a tale as old as time — modern, even. Glenn Close is a horny, devious widow who employs her …
[8] Angelina Jolie stars in this gripping true story about a woman in 1920s Los Angeles whose young son vanishes without a trace one afternoon. When the L.A.P.D. notify her they’ve found him, she’s shocked to discover the returned boy is not her son. Despite teachers and doctors agreeing with her about the new boy’s mistaken identity, the police won’t continue the search for her …
[7] John Malkovich stars as renowned German film director F.W. Murnau during the making of the seminal 1922 horror movie, Nosferatu. Willem Dafoe co-stars as enigmatic, creepy-as-shit Max Schreck, who played the vampire in Murnau’s classic. But that’s just the springboard for Shadow of the Vampire, which is really more concerned about creating its own fiction than depicting any behind-the-scenes reality. The gimmick here is …
[6] Jean-Luc Godard once said, “All you need for a movie is a girl and a gun.” Watching Helen Mirren seize comand of a blazing Gatling gun, I think Godard may be onto something. RED isn’t terribly original or surprising, but its venerable cast rescues it from mediocrity. Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, and Mirren play retired CIA agents who return to their old habits …
[7] Mark Wahlberg and Kurt Russell headline this true story about the largest oil drilling disaster in American history. Deepwater Horizon is essentially a disaster movie in the grand tradition of that subgenre, but director Peter Berg is sensitive to the fact that 11 men lost their lives in the 2010 tragedy and that crude oil flooded the Gulf of Mexico as a result. BP Oil …
[7] In the great zombie apocalypse, a dead teenager (Nicholas Hoult) falls in love with a human survivalist (Teresa Palmer). Their affection for each other sparks enlightenment among the rest of the freshly dead, while the girl’s militaristic father (John Malkovich) and the long-dead ‘bonies’ push toward annihilation. Warm Bodies messes with zombie lore and strains my suspension of disbelief on numerous occasions, but by the …
[8] Spielberg explores World War II through the eyes of a young British boy (Christian Bale) separated from his parents in Shanghai and forced to live in a Japanese internment camp. For a director who often celebrates innocence (and sometimes wallows in it), it’s nice to see a darker examination of the subject. In Empire of the Sun, innocence isn’t just lost. It’s almost shattered.
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