Everest Review
RATING: (3 STARS) The only character who matters in Everest is the titular mountain. This is something director Balthasar Kormakur gets across to his audience within minutes. As a group of bodies (that’s all they are in the moment) ascends the face of the mountain, the camera overcomes their understandably slow pace. As they’re pelted […]
Anna Karenina (2012) Review
RATING: (1.5 STARS) Joe Wright’s adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s monumental novel Anna Karenina is a borderline unendurable experience—an exercise in period porn so devoid of charm, pleasantness, and an artistic reason to exist that each second feels like 1,000. Yes, Wright has updated Tolstoy’s text considerably—a necessary evil of adapting something that’s been seen on […]
Jane Eyre (2011) Review
RATING: (3 STARS) Watching Jane Eyre brought me back to high school English class—not just because I did in fact read the classic Charlotte Bronte novel upon which the film is based, but because I reacted to this film in the same way I would most assigned reading: I got through it at a sluggish […]
Agora Review
RATING: (2 STARS) You certainly can’t fault Agora director Alejandro Amenabar for not being ambitious. His sword-and-sandals drama tries to connect stories related to religious intolerance, the alignment of the universe, and the love of a slave for his master. He isn’t wholly unsuccessful—the film has some very powerful moments—but there are far more misses […]
