January 3rd, 2010 admin
2009
Starring: Heath Ledger, Christopher Plummer, Tom Waits, Verne Troyer, Lily Cole, Andrew Garfield, Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell, Jude Law
Director: Terry Gilliam
Runtime: 122 Minutes
Distributor: Sony Picture Classics
Rating: PG-13
The passing of Heath Ledger was a tragedy, and with it we mourn the loss of a great and gifted performer coming into his own and standing on the cusp of greatness. But if there is one tiny nugget of positive impact we can salvage from such tragic circumstance it is the effect his untimely death had on his dear friend and director Terry Gilliam. Midway through his dark hearted Faustian saga in which a thousand year-old carnival owner battles The Devil for souls in an unwise wager, Gilliam suddenly found himself without his leading actor.
With much of the real-world action wrapped already, Gilliam hit on a stroke of genius whereby he envisioned that each of the three times Ledger’s character, the enigmatic, amnesia-stricken George, would step through the mirror into the Imaginarium, a surrealist netherworld where temptation battles imagination for the right to consume you or set you free, he would be played by a different actor (first Johnny Depp, then Jude Law, and, finally Colin Farrell). At the time the idea seemed risky to say the least, but having now been realized the notion of a man with no conscious memory being different each time his subconscious is tapped into seems so natural and straightforward it is difficult to imagine how such scenes could have been more effective had Ledger played the parts himself. This unforeseen obstacle jolted Gilliam and sparked within him an explosion of ingenuity, channeled like a diamond bit to the purpose of salvaging his picture from disaster.
Click here to read the full review at Uinterview.com.
Posted in Drama, Fantasy, Feature Films, Reviews | No Comments »
January 1st, 2010 admin
2009
Starring: Emily Blunt, Rupert Friend, Paul Bettany, Miranda Richardson, Mark Strong, Jim Broadbent, Thomas Kretschmann
Director: Jean-Marc Vallee
Runtime: 100 Minutes
Distributor: Momentum Pictures
Rating: PG
It’s a testament to the reserved and unobtrusive sense of the direction from helmer Jean-Marc Vallee that no reactionary lips were set a quivering by the realization that this intimate portrait of the eponymous monarch comes not from a Brit, but instead courtesy of (gasp) a French-Canadian. In fact, as evidenced by his poking a little fun at the overblown opulence of the coronation ceremony Vallee understands all too well that the monarchy of that time, tied as it was to Europe’s precarious political situation and various power struggles, was one gigantic circus act that needed little further embellishment from him. Before the pre-teen princess, set to inherit her uncles’ throne, has finished hop-scotching across a manner foyer we’ve already been to Belgium, Germany, and back to England to meet the various aristocracy desperately maneuvering to make a grab for the levers of power.
Chief amongst them is Sir John Conroy (Mark Strong), advisor to Victoria’s mother, The Duchess of Kent (an impressive Miranda Richardson), hoping to rule as regent in her stead. Scheming and purposeful, Conroy is the closest the film musters to an out-and-out antagonist, but his threat is never fully realized as the second Victoria comes of age he his banished from court and spends the rest of the story scuttling about the fringes in frustration. Such is the nature of the rigidly structured political system that the primary conflict is handled so much by proxy, with various players plotting away quietly and avoiding anything approaching a traditional confrontation.
Click here to read the full review at Uinterview.com.
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December 24th, 2009 admin
A long-running, picturesque television series centered on an all-female workforce who come together in fellowship to revive the fortunes of the flagging Drover’s Run cattle ranch, McLeod’s Daughters is considered something of a national treasure in it’s native Australia. After eight successful seasons culminated earlier this year with the show’s 224th and final episode (how many U.S. shows make it that far?), we are treated to this DVD re-release of the 1996 television movie where the journey first began.
A good old fashioned melodrama set against the gorgeous backdrop of big sky country, McLeod’s Daughters is a wildly uneven affair where some solid performances by the female leads are consistently undermined by poor scripting, an overblown soundtrack, and the sadly all too frequent intrusion by moments of appalling technical incompetence. The story begins with city-girl Tess (Kym Wilson) making the long journey into the heartland to deliver news to her estranged father, Jack McLeod (Jack Thompson) that his ex-wife, Tess’ mother, has died of cancer. Welcomed with open arms by her father, Tess is greeted with suspicion and resentment by her half sister Claire (Tammy MacIntosh) who blames Tess’ mother for driving Jack into the bottle when they left all those years ago. After Jack dies in a riding accident (quite possibly the single worst stunt sequence of all time) Tess and Claire must put aside their differences and work together to save the ranch from financial ruin.
Click here to read the full review at JustPressPlay.net.
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December 20th, 2009 admin
2009
Starring: Morgan Freeman, Matt Damon, Julian Lewis Jones, Langley Kirkwood, Tony Kgoroge
Director: Clint Eastwood
Runtime: 134 Minutes
Distributor: Warner Bros.
Rating: PG-13
These days Awards season just doesn’t seem complete without a Clint Eastwood period drama, and looking at the Oscar-baiters this year it seems clear that Apartheid is the new Holocaust. While we have learned to never underestimate the Old Master this ambitious portrait of the former South African leader Nelson Mandela might at a distance seem a step beyond even him. An adaptation of Jon Carlin’s book Playing the enemy Invictus shows how Mandela risked much of his political capitol in throwing his full support behind the South African rugby team, viewed by the newly empowered black majority as a fierce symbol of the Apartheid regime, in the hope that they could triumph at the upcoming Rugby World Cup.
Cooked up out of such unpalatable ingredients as foreign countries and funny accents, it’s a story that tackles such prickly issues as race (eww!) and politics (ugh!) and this funny sport with complicated rules that most Americans have never seen. Then there is the issue of Mandela himself. Arrested for anti-apartheid activities, imprisoned for twenty-seven years, released and finally elected President, Mandela is of such reverence and stature – considered saintly by some – that you wonder who in the world could ever effectively show us Mandela the man?
Click here to read the full review at Uinterview.com.
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December 12th, 2009 admin
An environmentalist wake-up call that plays more like a paranoid thriller, this uncompromising, exhilarating expose of the whaling industries dirty little secret, which many are tipping as the frontrunner for next year’s Oscar, is a head striking apple fallen from the “we’re all doomed” branch of documentary filmmaking. Heading up this team of activists and filmmakers is Rick O’Barry, a former dolphin trainer who has dedicated the latter half of his life to blowing the whistle on the barbaric, hushed-up activities of the tiny coastal town of Taiji, where some 23,000 dolphins are rounded up annually so a handful can be chosen by trainers for theme parks and the rest butchered for their meat.
It’s something of a cruel irony for O’Barry that he is perhaps the man most directly responsible for the very practice he is now so desperate to stop, and one he is all too painfully aware of. Formerly the head trainer on the Flipper television series O’Barry had an epiphany when the show’s primary dolphin, “Kathy,” voluntarily stopped breathing in his arms in what O’Barry saw as a desperate act of escape from a miserable existence. Prior to the success of Flipper there were two Dolphinariums in the world, today it’s a multi-billion dollar industry. As Barry painfully surmises with a lump in his throat: “I spent ten years building that industry up, and the last twenty-seven trying to tear it down.”
Click here to read the full review at JustPressPlay.net.
Posted in Documentary, Feature Films, Reviews | No Comments »
December 2nd, 2009 admin
2009
Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Robert Duvall, Guy Pearce, Charlize Theron
Director: John Hillcoat
Runtime: 119 Minutes
Distributor: The Weinstein Company
Rating: R
It’s both ironic and at the same time strangely appropriate that Australian director John Hillcoat should deliver this diligently faithful adaptation of Cormack McCarthy’s relentlessly bleak end-of-the-world parable so soon after the release of Roland Emmerich’s bloated pixel-fest 2012. Where as that disaster picture chose to depict the end of all things as bloated CGI spectacle, pre-occupied with the eye-candy of the event to the exclusion of almost everything else, McCarthy’s story makes the event itself almost an afterthought.
Through a story that begins after everything we know came to and end we find a nameless father (Viggo Mortensen) and his son (Kodi Smit McPhee), who is maybe ten-years-old, on a relentless grueling death march through blackened forests and over barren hillside, hoping to reach the coast before starvation takes them. As they huddle together, filthy, amidst the freezing earth, we come know through dreams and flashbacks that at some point there was a cataclysm and everything was laid waste. It’s never made clear what exactly the event was, or whether it was caused by man or some cruel act of nature, and in the context of a hardscrabble existence driven by the unending search for scraps of food and shelter it simply doesn’t matter.
Click here to read the full review at Uinterview.com.
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November 27th, 2009 admin
2009
Starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Tom Sturridge, Rhys Darby, Nick Frost, Chris O’Dowd, Katherine Parkinson, Rhys Ifans, Kenneth Branagh, Jack Davenport
Director: Richard Curtis
Runtime: 135 Minutes
Distributor: Focus Features
Rating: R
Richard Curtis - the anti-Ken Loach of British cinema - is a hard guy not to like. Go on, try it. See, you cant. It’s just not possible. Sure, his movies and scripts continue to display a preoccupation with upper-middle class buffoonery, and yes, he perhaps has demonstrated something of a preoccupation with Hugh Grant’s floppy fringe. But in an age where its hip to be cynical there is something undeniably disarming about his rose-tinted view of encroaching middle-age, where real world responsibilities kind of melt away leaving plenty of time for harmless drug use, consequence-free tomfoolery, and inoffensive hell-raising.
Having made his name penning the scripts for such well received hits as Four Weddings and Notting Hill, Curtis takes his second crack at the directorial whip following the crowd-pleasing Love Actually. Loosely based on the Radio Caroline story, the name given to ships broadcasting from international waters in the mid sixties as a way around government regulations, Pirate Radio offers Curtis the opportunity to whip up an ode to counter-culture on the high seas indulging his two favorite subjects - awkward overgrown schoolboys lusting after posh totty, and music. Some might even say (harshly) that the story itself doesn’t matter and is simply an excuse to rock out to some great tunes. Radio Rock, as Philip Seymour Hoffman’s scruffy DJ, The Duke, duly announces, is “Where we count down to ecstasy and rock all day and all of the night!”; cue The Kinks “All Day and All of the Night.” But hey, who can argue?
Click here to read the full review at Uinterview.com.
Posted in Comedy/Romance, Feature Films, Reviews | No Comments »
November 16th, 2009 admin
Starring: Susanna Blakeslee, Erin Torpey, Corey Burton, Roger Craig Smith, Gilbert Gottfried, Linda Larkin
Director: David Block
Runtime: 56 Minutes
Distributor: Disney
Rating: NR
With a price tag of $20.99 and a runtime just shy of an hour, parents may perhaps baulk at this most recent Disney parental go-between, which will happily entertain their kids so that they don’t have to, deciding that the rate is less in line with your average babysitter than a live-in, inner-city nanny who also performs light housework.
A pure piece of candy-coated bubblegum fantasy aimed firmly at the under tens the Disney Princess Enchanted Tales series blends traditional animated fantasy with songs and simplified life lessons into bite sized developmental education with the added benefit of perhaps a little piece and quiet.
Dividing itself into two separate chapters loosely knotted together by the soothing, non-threatening, warble of narrator Susanna Blakeslee (she even sounds like a Disney character), this follow your dreams edition reintroduces us to the continuing adventures of Princess Aurora, aka Sleeping Beauty, and Princess Jasmine, star of Aladdin.
Click here to read the full review at JustPressPlay.net.
Posted in Animation, Feature Films, Reviews | No Comments »
November 13th, 2009 admin
2009
Starring: Gerard Butler, Jamie Foxx, Colm Meaney, Bruce McGill, Regina Hall, Emerald-Angel Young, Leslie Bibb
Director: F. Gary Grey
Runtime: 109 Minutes
Distributor: Overture Film
Rating: R
With a sprawling yet tightly wound Machiavellian conspiracy at its center, this overblown game of cat and mouse between a cocksure Philadelphia DA and the grieving husband and father-turned-vengeful psychopath wronged by him offers itself up as a thinking man’s actioner. Which is ironic really because if you actually stop to think about it for even a second the entire mess starts to unravel. The latest from director F. Gary Grey this undercooked psychological tussle wraps itself in pretensions of something deeper, offering musings on the glaring imperfections and inadequacies that riddle our justice system, but plays like a big budget Law & Order episode with Bond styling crossed with The Shawshank Redemption.
In something of an odd piece of casting Gerard Butler is Clyde Shelton, doting husband and happy father. Happy for about ninety seconds until a pair of thugs crash through the door, knife him and slaughter his family. Realizing he can preserve his conviction rate against a risky jury trial, dedicated but cold DA Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) cuts a deal; one thug to death row, the other to a holiday camp for 3-5 in exchange for testimony. Despite the physique of a Greek God Butler cuts a surprisingly convincing figure as the devastated family man whose life has just been eviscerated by a seemingly senseless act of violence. But who wants to know about that guy? Not Grey, he wants to get to the cool shit!
Click here to read the full review at Uinterview.com.
Posted in Feature Films, Reviews, Thriller | No Comments »
November 7th, 2009 admin
2009
Starring: Max Records, James Gandolfini, Katherine Keener, Chris Cooper, Catherine O’Hara, Paul Dano, Forest Whitaker, Lauren Ambrose
Director: Spike Jonze
Runtime: 94 Minutes
Distributor: Warner Bros.
Rating: PG
For more than a decade offbeat auteur Spike Jonze, director of surrealist headscratchers Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, dragged his labor of love vision for Maurice Sendak’s celebrated children’s fable about a bedroom busting Odyssey through a troubled boy’s imagination all around town looking for a studio to work with. Universal threatened for a good long time before baulking and ultimately the property ended up in the hands of Warner Bros. Then disaster! Early test footage of some admittedly wonky animatronics found its way online causing uproar and the collective soiling of executive smalls. “Think of the children!” they wailed, as rumors circulated of narrative darkness traumatizing terrified tots at focus group screenings.
While certainly reactionary – the film is nowhere near as scary as some would have you believe – Warner’s concerns were not without merit. Jonze absolutely was not thinking of the children, he was thinking of us. As has been correctly summarized already in several reviews, Where the Wild things Are is not a kids movie. Nor is it an ironic hipster film, the likes of Labyrinth and Dark Crystal. Rather, it is a move aimed at adults about what it was like to be a kid.
Click here to read the full review at Uinterview.com.
Posted in Fantasy, Feature Films, Reviews | No Comments »