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Incisive film reviews. Titles range from silents to modern, avant-garde and blockbuster, non-English and so on.
Recent Posts Tagged With '★'
Land of the Lost (2009, Brad Silberling)
I kind of remember the “Land of the Lost” theme song, but don’t remember ever watching the show. I watched the movie because of an interview Elvis Mitchell did with Silberling, but have no idea what he said in that interview to make me interest...
The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009, Tony Scott)
The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 might be the worst directed film I’ve ever liked. I haven’t seen a Tony Scott effort in eight years and he just gets more and more obnoxious with the post production effects. It’s like he’s competing with himself to...
Green Lantern: First Flight (2009, Lauren Montgomery)
There’s a certain amount of competence to the plotting in Green Lantern: First Flight. It’s too bad the filmmakers didn’t pay the same attention to the characters. The film basically lifts the plot structure from any number of established sourc...
Screamers (1995, Christian Duguay)
Sometimes competency is a bad thing. Screamers is a fairly well-made–Duguay’s composition isn’t spectacular, mostly because the sets were all CG embellished so there was only so much he was actually shooting–but there are some excellent effec...
Paycheck (2003, John Woo)
Didn't John Woo used to have a style? I mean, I know he had birds and he had the guns pointed at each other, but didn't he have some style? He's got no style in Paycheck, which ends up being one of the best movies John Badham never made. It's a compl...
Paperback Hero (1999, Antony J. Bowman)
A substantial portion--probably seventy percent--of Paperback Hero is solely about Hugh Jackman being charming. The rest, presumably, is about being a Claudia Karvan movie. But it's really not. Karvan's top-billed and she's got, I guess, the bigger s...
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009, Gavin Hood)
One has to wonder if, had things worked out differently, Harrison Ford would have made a Han Solo prequel in the mid-1980s. I mean, he did reprise Bob Falfa. While the X-Men movies did make Hugh Jackman a star, they didn't really make him the biggest...
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006, Brett Ratner)
Apparently all the X-Men movies needed was the vapidness of Brett Ratner. What's strangest about his replacing of Singer is the mutation being a metaphor for homosexuality. Singer used it as a metaphor (poorly) for race in the first one. I don't thin...
Striking Distance (1993, Rowdy Herrington)
If it weren’t for the fantastic Brad Fiedel music (until the end credits) and the Pittsburgh locations (the city really is underutilized as a filming location, with Striking Distance taking fantastic advantage of its mix of urban, green and wat...
Star Trek (2009, J.J. Abrams)
There really isn’t anything to dislike about Star Trek. Well, maybe the music, which isn’t bad, just isn’t as good the rest of the music in the series. There’s a lot to like–Chris Pine (though the wife disagrees), J.J. A...
State of Play (2009, Kevin Macdonald)
Who has the least personality when it comes to State of Play? Director Kevin Macdonald? He shoots the most boring Panavision-sized frame I think I’ve ever seen. I’ve never seen a Brett Ratner movie from start to finish, but… Macdonald’s b...
Just Buried (2007, Chaz Thorne)
It’s a terrible thing to say, but I can’t figure out why Rose Byrne did this movie. Not to knock it with a generalization, but Just Buried’s a Canadian production. Even though Jay Baruchel’s on the rise, besides her, everyone ...
Blood and Wine (1996, Bob Rafelson)
Boiling them down, three things ruin Blood and Wine. Stephen Dorff, the script and the approach. The last two are complicated, because it’s hard to see determine where the script and the approach differ. Blood and Wine was, at the time of its r...
Taxi 3 (2003, Gérard Krawczyk)
Taxi 3 starts with a superior set-up, a James Bond-esque chase scene through Marseilles, the good guy on a bicycle, running from the bad guys (on rollerblades). It’s goofy and funny–the best part being the bad guy running into a plexiglas...
Murder 101 (1991, Bill Condon)
It’s kind of amazing how much self-depreciation can turn something around. Not to spoil Murder 101’s usage–it’s actually not the spoiler for the mystery–but think of The Muppet Movie. Almost the entire running time of th...
Calling Dr. Kildare (1939, Harold S. Bucquet)
Someone thought Calling Dr. Kildare was a good idea. Sitting through the turgid eighty-six minute running time, that thought occasionally popped into my head. Someone thought this story was a good idea. Lew Ayres’s young Dr. Kildare (this one&#...
Blondie Meets the Boss (1939, Frank R. Strayer)
It’s hard to say who gives a better performance in Blondie Meets the Boss, Larry Simms as Baby Dumpling or Daisy the dog. Simms has a lot of funny lines–all the best lines are from kids talking about adults, it was hard not to think this ...
The Prizefighter and the Lady (1933, W.S. Van Dyke)
The Prizefighter and the Lady mixes a couple genres–the philandering husband whose wife can’t stop loving him standard and, additionally, stunt casting. Heavyweight contender Max Baer stars as a heavyweight contender, who fights the champ...
The Hot Spot (1990, Dennis Hopper)
One of the most important things about a film noir is the ending. It has to be perfect. It doesn’t matter what comes before, the ending just has to be right. The Hot Spot is a film noir. It’s not a neo-noir. There’s an important dis...
Thunderbolt (1929, Josef von Sternberg)
Thunderbolt has some excellent use of sound. It’s a very early talky and I’m hesitant to say any of its uses were innovative, because the word suggests others picked up on the techniques and developed them. Most of Thunderbolt’s sin...
Traitor (2008, Jeffrey Nachmanoff)
Traitor is the Superman IV of terrorism movies. I suppose I need to explain. I think Tom Mankiewicz once told Christopher Reeve you couldn’t have Superman messing around with the real world. Traitor is a Hollywood terrorism movie–in the v...
Caddyshack II (1988, Allan Arkush)
Now it makes sense–Rodney Dangerfield was originally going to come back for Caddyshack II, but then fell out over script disputes and Jackie Mason came in, persona in hand, to fill in. I kept wondering who writers Harold Ramis and Peter Torokve...
Let the Right One In (2008, Tomas Alfredson)
I wonder how Let the Right One In would work if it made any sense. There aren’t exactly plot holes so much as nonsensical details. Why a vampire–even if she is stuck as a twelve-year-old–would want to hang out with other twelve year...
Changeling (2008, Clint Eastwood)
During the lousiest parts of Changeling–easily identifiable by Jeffrey Donovan’s increased presence–there should be a disclaimer running across the bottom of the screen: “It doesn’t stay this bad… promise.” C...
Lions for Lambs (2007, Robert Redford)
Hopefully, Lions for Lambs will be the most topical film ever made. Hopefully. In fifteen years, hopefully it won’t make any sense. It probably will. As a dramatic narrative, it’s pretty limp. Most of the scenes with the big three are dia...
Beautiful Girls (1996, Ted Demme)
Of the principals, only Michael Rapaport is under thirty (Beautiful Girls hinges on a ten-year high school reunion) and much of the running time can be spent wondering how the viewer is supposed to believe Timothy Hutton isn’t thirty-five years...
Thunder Birds (1942, William A. Wellman)
Thunder Birds runs just under eighty minutes and if one were to subtract the propaganda, both narrated and in lengthy monologues–not to mention the flashback to the stoic Brits–he or she would have a fifty-five minute love triangle set at...
Tarzan the Ape Man (1932, W.S. Van Dyke)
It’s hard to believe a movie called Tarzan the Ape Man is going to be boring, but this one drags on and on. After a solid opening twenty minutes, the movie stumbles and never regains its footing. The problem is with Tarzan. Johnny Weissmuller&#...
Beau Geste (1939, William A. Wellman)
Beau Geste is a colonial adventure, European soldiers under siege in the Arabian desert. There’s some imagination to the telling, but not at all enough. The strangest thing about the film is the title–Gary Cooper plays Beau Geste, who in ...
