2012 TIFF Titles to Watch: #50-#41
The Toronto International Film Festival is rapidly approaching, and I’ve identified the 50 most promising films on the TIFF lineup. Over the next five days, I’ll be counting them down. Today, the preview starts with Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Alex Gibney, and more! 50.) Motorway Program: Vanguard Distributor: N/A Directed by: Soi Cheang Written by: […]
2013 OSCAR PREDICTIONS: Best Picture Spitballing
Yes, it’s time. Sorry, folks. With summer winding down, the festival lineups being announced, and the fall schedule experiencing its traditional last-minute jostling (Goodbye, The Great Gatsby. We hardly considered thee.) Oscar season is ready to begin. I’ll cover it as I usually do, with semi-regular posts covering what’s changed on a category-by-category level. Today, […]
Footnote Review
RATING: (2.5 STARS) Joseph Cedar’s Footnote tells a very personal story in an impersonal and trivializing way. It’s Cedar’s unusual, energetic style that likely pleased the 2011 Cannes Jury enough to give the film a prize (Best Screenplay), but it’s these very same qualities that will leave a mildly unsatisfying taste in your mouth. Footnote […]
Who’s That Knocking at My Door Review
RATING: (2 STARS) Martin Scorsese’s directorial career kicked off with 1967’s Who’s That Knocking at My Door, a stylistically ambitious but dramatically flat slice of New York Italian realism. Show this movie to someone unfamiliar with the director’s masterpieces, and he or she would likely point out the tremendous potential that drips from almost every […]
Ranking Christopher Nolan Films
His first movie came out in 1998. Since then, Christopher Nolan has done and accomplished a lot. He has three Oscar nominations under his belt (none for directing, but two for Original Screenplay [Inception and Memento] and one for Best Picture [Inception]). DGA and Golden Globe nominations, BAFTA awards, Independent Spirit Awards, and much more—not […]
Ranking the James Bond Movies
I’ve gone through all 22 James Bond films pretty thoroughly over the past month, and with the release of Skyfall, it’s time to see where they stack up against one another. There might not be many surprises found here, but I hope you enjoy and appreciate my rankings. Feel free to comment and share yours! […]
Savages Review
RATING: (2.5 STARS) With Savages, Oliver Stone has veered off the path of politically-motivated dramas and moved in the direction of a simpler, and sexier, crime thriller. This adaptation of Don Winslow’s novel isn’t as narratively dense as something like JFK, but it ends up getting bogged down in unnecessary exposition, which ultimately takes away […]
The Dark Knight Rises Review
RATING: (3.5 STARS) With The Dark Knight Rises, the stirring finale to the wildly successful post-millennial Batman trilogy, director and cowriter Christopher Nolan laughs in the face of staggeringly high expectations and gives us perhaps the grandest of all superhero movies. The movie itself is this big, hulking monster—not unlike its main villain—but its flaws […]
Jiro Dreams of Sushi
There isn’t a sushi chef in the world more accomplished and admired than Japan’s Jiro Ono. The 85-year-old’s 10-seat Tokyo sushi bar, Sukiyabashi Jiro, is one of the world’s smallest establishments to be awarded three Michelin stars (the highest honor for restauranteurs). Director David Gelb’s documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi follows the chef and gets […]
Where Nolan’s Batman Comes Up Short
Seven years ago, we all began a journey. It started in a distant land with a man carrying a blue flower to the top of a tall mountain. We’ve left it with the same man going into exile after the death of a friend. Where it ends, we don’t yet know (well, some do), but […]
Friends with Kids Review
RATING: (3 STARS) The premise of Jennifer Westfeldt’s Friends with Kids is irritating and feels false. A pair of successful, attractive, and personable thirtysomethings can’t find their soulmates, so they decide to have a kid together before Father Time catches up to them. These two serial daters are Jason (Adam Scott) and Julie (Westfeldt), and […]
The Amazing Spider-Man Review
RATING: (3 STARS) Put simply, Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man is an entertaining superhero movie, and if that’s what you’re looking for during the sweltering summer months, you’ll get your money’s worth. Of course, the film has the added burden of proving to audience that its necessary to reboot the Spidey series just a decade […]
BLU-RAY REVIEW: Margaret
Kenneth Lonergan’s Margaret is both a film you’ll want to kiss and a film you’ll want to kill. Ditto its lead character, Lisa Cohen, an upper-middle-class New York teen played so expertly by Anna Paquin. If she seems a bit riper than on HBO’s True Blood, it’s for a good reason; Lonergan filmed Margaret way […]
To Rome with Love Review
RATING: (2 STARS) After lighting up the City of Lights after dark in Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen takes his talents to Rome for another ensemble comedy—To Rome with Love. Though it’s packed with talented actors and actresses (and features Allen’s return to acting for the first time since 2006’s Scoop), it’s sloppily constructed and […]
Brave Review
RATING: (3 STARS) Good-natured and well-crafted, Brave is everything a family film should be. Unfortunately, Pixar’s nearly flawless track record has saddled its twelfth feature film with expectations it’s unable to live up to. Its rich, character-filled animation and big heart unfortunately don’t distract enough from the film’s over-reliance on broad comedy, nor its disappointingly […]
2 Days in New York Review
RATING: (1.5 STARS) Actress Julie Delpy shot to art-house stardom after playing Celine in Richard Linklater’s sublime Euro-romance Before Sunrise. She reprised the role in the director’s somewhat unexpected follow-up, Before Sunset, almost a decade later. Since then, Delpy has been largely absent from the big screen minus one big exception—a 2007 film 2 Days […]
