Archive for the ‘Film/Film Reviews’ Category
December 24th, 2009
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Author: by Hannah Sayle
Its complicated, is probably the best way to sum up my relationship with the new romantic comedy of the same name. First, let me just say: I am one of the many loyal fans who would watch Meryl Streep act in a Jell-o commercial. Established favorites like Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin always make for quality entertainment. And despite the fact that John Krasinski is still using the same Am I the only sane one here? shtick, it works, so…
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Up in the Air is a snazzy, smart entertainment but not without turbulence.
by Chris Herrington
Ten years ago, at the end of a previous decade, a movie emerged searching for Oscar gold. It featured a charismatic lead actor (Kevin Spacey) in his juiciest starring role and seemed to tap into a complacent national mood, something its title (American Beauty) wouldn’t let you forget. Up in the Air, directed by Jason Reitman (Juno) and starring George Clooney, is essentially American Beauty for a different time, attempting to tap into a more restless, anxious national mood. Like…
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by Chris Herrington
Broadway musical adaptations have had a decent track record in recent years but not so with Nine, a new film based on the stage musical, which lacks the stream-of-consciousness fluidity and deadpan wit (among other elements) that marked Federico Fellini’s arthouse classic film and original source material, 8 1/2. Daniel Day-Lewis takes the lead here as director Guido Conti (originally played by Marcello Mastroianni), a famed Italian filmmaker suffering a crisis of confidence as shooting approaches on a production he…
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by Greg Akers
In Hollywood, what’s old is eternally new again, and Sherlock Holmes looks to be the next big movie franchise. An update of the iconic Sir Arthur Conan Doyle detective, Sherlock Holmes may well enrage purists, many of whom call themselves Baker Street Irregulars. But for the just-regulars in the audience, the film is dynamite entertainment. Sherlock Holmes enhances the seamier personality quirks of the title character. Perhaps channeling his own storied personal excesses, Robert Downey Jr. takes Holmes toward a…
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Flyer film critics scour a rich 2009 for the year’s best movies.
by Flyer Staff
Last year in this space, we proclaimed 2008 the “worst year ever,” and I think that designation has held up pretty well. Comparatively, 2009 was a year of cinematic plenty, despite a lack of anything I might be tempted to call a masterpiece, inspiring my personal “Top 20″ list to go 25 films deep, every one of which would have made my top dozen a year ago. If the film story of 2008 was better-than-normal popcorn movies, 2009 was the…
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by Chris Herrington
Bright Star contains some of the most sublime moments at the movies this year: A young woman in static repose in her sun-kissed bedroom, breeze fluttering the curtains, her heart and mind opened to romantic love for the first time. Later, the same young woman is seen in a field of flowers, dropping to her knees to read a letter from her would-be love, then onto her back to soak in the thoughts: “I almost wish we were butterflies and…
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Cormac McCarthy’s grim Pulitzer winner gets a big-screen adaptation.
by Addison Engelking
The Road opens with a dreamy, brightly lit montage of domestic tranquility (wife, garden, horse) that is rudely interrupted as a man — excuse me, make that “The Man” (Viggo Mortensen) — awakens from his dreams to confront the gray, lifeless world stretched before him. Months, perhaps years, of subsistence-level misery have settled firmly on the backs of the Man and his son, the Boy (Kody Smit-McPhee). We learn quickly that the Man’s wife (Charlize Theron) has been gone for…
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Cormac McCarthy’s grim Pulitzer winner gets a big-screen adaptation.
by Addison Engelking
The Road opens with a dreamy, brightly lit montage of domestic tranquility (wife, garden, horse) that is rudely interrupted as a man — excuse me, make that “The Man” (Viggo Mortensen) — awakens from his dreams to confront the gray, lifeless world stretched before him. Months, perhaps years, of subsistence-level misery have settled firmly on the backs of the Man and his son, the Boy (Kody Smit-McPhee). We learn quickly that the Man’s wife (Charlize Theron) has been gone for…
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Clint Eastwood closes a great decade with Invictus.
by Chris Herrington
Invictus, a soon-to-be 80-year-old Clint Eastwood’s astounding ninth feature film of the decade, opens with a sequence of terrific economy. It’s 1990 in South Africa, on the very day that Nelson Mandela is being released after 27 years in prison. The camera opens on a rugby field — green, well-kept grass trod by young white men in neat, well-fitting uniforms, the practice space enclosed by a gleaming, black iron gate. After capturing this scene for the briefest moment, Eastwood’s camera…
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by Chris Herrington
Originally released as two features totaling five hours (à la Kill Bill) but edited down to one two-and-a-half-hour movie for non-Asian release, the Chinese historical war epic Red Cliff is director John Woo’s wildly successful return to his native country and language after an up-and-down decade in Hollywood (Hard Target, Face/Off, Mission Impossible II). There are moments here reminiscent of the gonzo action of Woo’s early Hong Kong classics such as Hard-Boiled and The Killer: In one early battle scene,…
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