ACROSS THE UNIVERSE – Elliot Goldenthal
Original Review by Clark Douglas
Full disclosure: I love The Beatles. Also, I love Julie Taymor (if my wife or Elliot Goldenthal are reading, I only love her in the artistic sense). So, when I heard about Julie Taymor (“Titus”, “Frida”) was directing a musical centered around songs of The Beatles (Greatest Band Ever), I was pretty thrilled. Of course, as a big Beatles fan, I approached the film with a certain amount of caution, too: though I was likely to enjoy the movie more than the average person, I was also more likely to be disappointed by the songs if they turned out to be bad covers of the tunes I loved. Beatles musicals of the past (most of which starred The Beatles) were giddy, silly, joyful affairs full of campy comedy and terrific music… unless you count “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, which was bad comedy and terrible music. Taymor’s approach to creating a musical centered around the songs is considerably different. She attempts to make her film intensely dramatic, and in doing so puts her attention a bit more on the later, more ambitious (and more drug-fueled) Beatles songs. The approach works sometimes, and sometimes it doesn’t, but it’s certainly a very compelling idea. Read more…
THE BRAVE ONE – Dario Marianelli
Original Review by Clark Douglas
While I was quite bothered by the way audiences responded to Neil Jordan’s thoughtful thriller “The Brave One”, it didn’t keep me from admiring the film for a number of reasons. It’s a well-crafted film with several three-dimensional characters and a story that doesn’t allow reality to slip away during the difficult moments. Jodie Foster turns in one of her best “victimized woman” performances, and Terence Howard adds some very solid support as the police officer who befriends/investigates her. The film is essentially a much more thoughtful take on “Death Wish”, a revenge thriller in which the heroine actually has to deal with the moral murkiness of her actions. Read more…
DRAGON WARS (D-WAR) – Steve Jablonsky
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
A very silly Korean monster movie directed by Hyung-Rae Shim, Dragon Wars (or D-War as it is alternately known) stars Jason Behr, Amanda Brooks and Robert Forster, and is based on an old Korean legend about mythological creatures called Imoogi, who every 500 years or so emerge from their hiding places, transform into enormous dragons, and do battle over the ownership of a mystical power source. Caught up in the middle of this ancient conflict is Ethan (Behr), a Los Angeles-based photojournalist who in a past life was a noble warrior in feudal Korea, and Sarah (Brooks), who is the reincarnation of the warrior’s love, and who (inexplicably) is the also guardian of the power source the dragons desire. Read more…
EASTERN PROMISES – Howard Shore
Original Review by Clark Douglas
In the humble opinion of yours truly, David Cronenberg is one of the most interesting directors working in cinema today. His films are frequently daring and creative, unafraid to crawl into the dark corners of the soul that are usually left ignored. By Cronenberg’s standards, “Eastern Promises” is a more accessible, less peculiar movie, but that doesn’t mean it’s of any less value than something like “Naked Lunch”. “Eastern Promises” is a superb thriller and an even better character study, featuring award-worthy performances from Viggo Mortenson and Armin Mueller-Stahl. Read more…
IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH – Mark Isham
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Paul Haggis has grown increasingly bold as a filmmaker, but somehow less controversial with critics. The Haggis screenplay for “Million Dollar Baby” was terrific, and he collaborated with director Clint Eastwood to make the best film of 2004. In 2005, Haggis made another big impression with “Crash”, which certainly did some emotional button-pushing but was nonetheless a superb film. After the heavy-handed symbolism of the Haggis screenplay for “The Last Kiss” comes the even more heavy-handed “In the Valley of Elah”, which Haggis wrote and directed. The film benefits hugely from a superb Tommy Lee Jones performance before slipping into almost mind-bogglingly shameless emotional manipulation in the final act. Haggis was never a subtle artist, but I feel that he’s simply gone too far lately, and needs to restrain himself a little bit. Read more…
SILK – Ryuichi Sakamoto
Original Review by Clark Douglas
No less than nine years after winning acclaim for “The Red Violin”, director Francois Girard has finally returned to the world of cinema. His latest effort is “Silk”, based on the much-lauded book of the same name by Alessandro Barrico. The main character of the story is Herve Joncour (Michael Pitt), a French silkworm merchant traveling through Japan with his wife (Keira Knightly). While in Japan, the merchant falls in love with the mistress (Sei Ashina) of a fearsome Japanese overlord (Koji Yakusho). Of course, suspicions begin to arise on both sides and unsuspected plot elements begin to unfold. It’s a rather promising set-up, but most critics were quite underwhelmed by the story, saying it lacked passion and coherent plotting. Also, the lead performance of Michael Pitt was savaged by most, as many felt he lacked the emotional skills required to play such a role. Read more…
3:10 TO YUMA – Marco Beltrami
Original Review by Clark Douglas
There haven’t been many western films in the past couple of decades, something that many fans of cinema (including myself) have bemoaned. The few westerns that have appeared, good as they may be, seem to be carrying a lot of weight on their shoulders… they have the pressure of “reviving the cinematic western” hanging over them. With “3:10 to Yuma”, we are given an extraordinarily rare sort of western film… one that doesn’t seem to realize that the western is dead. It’s a lively, sad, rousing, funny motion picture that provides intelligent, but unpretentious entertainment from start to finish. Read more…
THE BROTHERS SOLOMON – John Swihart
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
An oddball movie starring Saturday Night Live veterans Will Arnett and Will Forte, The Brothers Solomon was a film about getting pregnant – or, more specifically, the Solomon brothers getting someone else pregnant. The Wills star as John and Dean Solomon, a pair of well-meaning, but socially inept brothers who, in order to provide their dying father (Lee Majors) with a grandchild, embark on a quest to find their perfect mates – two women who will, as the movie’s tagline suggests, be amenable to the brothers “putting a baby in them”.
This peculiar, slightly sinister-sounding movie was scored by up-and-coming comedy composer John Swihart, whose career has been in the ascendancy since he wrote the music for the cult hit Napoleon Dynamite in 2004 Read more…
THE HUNTING PARTY – Rolfe Kent
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The aftermath of the war in Bosnia still lingers, twelve years after the conflict officially ended. People there still remember the atrocities committed by the combatants, and some of the individuals who took part in them are still at large. This difficult political situation is the jumping off point of director Richard Shepard’s action/drama/thriller The Hunting Party, which stars Jesse Eisenberg, Terrence Howard and Richard Gere as a trio of journalists who, without the knowledge of the US government, embark on an unauthorized mission to Bosnia to find The Fox (Ljubomir Kerekeš), a notorious war criminal who remains free somewhere in the former Yugoslavia. However, once in the Balkans, the group finds itself in danger when they are mistaken for a CIA hit squad, and The Fox decides to wipe them out before they can find him. Read more…
IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON – Philip Sheppard
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
In the Shadow of the Moon is a critically acclaimed documentary directed by David Singleton, which chronicles the manned missions into space undertaken by NASA in the 1960s and 70s. The film features footage from the many Apollo missions, including the Apollo 11 mission which successfully landed on the moon, and the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission, the events of which were chronicled in Ron Howard’s 1995 film of the same name. Actual astronauts – notably Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, two of the three men who were part of the first moon landing – feature in the film, lending it a great deal of credibility and historical importance. Read more…
BALLS OF FURY – Randy Edelman
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
A somewhat peculiar movie which combines, of all things, kung-fu with ping-pong, Balls of Fury was a vehicle for up-and-coming comedy actor Dan Fogler. Fogler plays down-and-out former professional ping-pong champion Randy Daytona, whose life is changed when FBI Agent Ernie Rodriguez (George Lopez) recruits him for a secret mission: to travel to the far east and compete in a legendary “extreme ping pong” tournament organized by the nefarious Feng (Christopher Walken) – who is on the FBI’s most wanted list, and also happens to be the man who murdered Fogler’s father. Read more…
DEATH SENTENCE – Charlie Clouser
Original Review by Clark Douglas
There are few things I enjoy more than discovering that a movie I expected to be dumb and poorly made is actually smart and well-crafted. In addition, there are few things that disappoint me as much as discovering that a movie that seems smart and fresh is actually dumb and routine. Watching “Death Sentence”, I unusually experienced both the former and the latter. The film begins by introducing us to a very happy family of four. The father is played by Kevin Bacon, the mother is played by Kelly Preston, both sporting cheerful grins. Their two teenage boys are generally upstanding, well-behaved kids, and things are just hunky-dory. As you might expect from a movie with such a cheerful opening, tragedy soon occurs. The oldest son is killed by a young gang member. After the legal system fails to bring this young man to justice, Bacon hunts the kid down and kills him in a rage of anger Read more…
HALLOWEEN – Tyler Bates
Original Review by Clark Douglas
And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. – Samuel L. Jackson, “Pulp Fiction”
Oh, how I loathed this movie. “Halloween” is one of the worst remakes you will see this year, or any year. It takes a fascinating premise and removes it of all it’s fascination. It takes memorable characters and makes them boring. It takes subtlety and turns it into overbearing obviousness. It takes what was previously unspoken and spells it out. It takes a movie that was creative and breathtaking and makes it dull and uninvolving. In addition to all of this, it is just plain mean and ugly. Read more…
FLOOD – Debbie Wiseman
Original Review by Clark Douglas
“Flood” is a British thriller that might hit a little too close to home for many American audiences. Memories of Hurricane Katrina are probably still too fresh for many audiences (particularly in the southeast part of the states) for the film to really be very exciting. It sounds a bit like your standard disaster movie… a huge tidal wave is coming, millions of lives are at stake, it’s up to one man to save everybody, etc. and so on. I don’t know whether the film is aiming at being a tragic drama or an adrenaline-pumping action flick, but from the sound of Debbie Wiseman’s score it seems to be both. Read more…
RESURRECTING THE CHAMP – Larry Groupé
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
A powerful sports drama directed by Rod Lurie, Resurrecting the Champ stars Josh Hartnett as up-and-coming sports writer Erik Kernan. One day, Erik steps in to saves a homeless man from being beaten up by a group of rowdy college kids, and unexpectedly discovered that the intended victim is not some random bum, but former boxing great Bob Satterfield (Samuel L. Jackson), once believed to have passed away but who had actually fallen on hard times. Intent on writing Satterfield’s story, and ‘rescuing’ the ex-champion from what he sees to be an ignominious fate, Erik and Bob strike up an unlikely friendship, the knock-on effect from which is an opportunity for Erik to reexamine his own life, and especially his relationship with his young son (Dakota Goyo) and his ex-wife (Kathryn Morris). Read more…
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