Review - Milk
MILK [R]
review by Roger Brigham
Hope may be defined as the realization that we cannot change the way people are…but we can always work to change the way they will be. That was the essential political message and legacy of Harvey Milk’s life, and it is captured with a sublime performance by Sean Penn in Milk, director Gus Van Sant’s biopic of the former San Francisco city supervisor who changed the American political landscape.
“Milk” world premiered at the Castro Street Theatre in San Francisco - Milk’s old neighborhood. The film’s archival footage, location shots from a retro re-made Castro Street, and tight adherence to the facts result in a portrayal that accurately captures not just the very different social climate of 1970s San Francisco and the gay-ghetto Castro district, but as well as possible the personal and political idiosyncrasies that made Milk Milk.
The film begins where the story ends, with [...]
Original post by Robert Newton
Review - Yes Man
YES MAN [PG-13]
review by Padraic Maroney
Jim Carrey had instant stardom once he leapt onto the big screen with “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.” His catered to the same slapstick-happy audience with another couple of films before trying to go the Tom Hanks route and become bankable and respected in Hollywood. En route, he began to lose his way.
Over the last decade, Carrey went from a guaranteed box office king to a spotty record of hit and miss comedic and dramatic roles. With the exception of “The Truman Show,” the actor has never really gotten his bearings on dramatic films. His comedic roles went from classic films to middling. Lloyd Christmas from “Dumb & Dumber” became Count Olaf in the “Lemony Snicket” film. “Ace Ventura” morphed into the remake of “Fun With Dick And Jane.” Now, though, we can all take heart in knowing that Carrey may have found his way back [...]
Original post by Robert Newton
Review - The Tale Of Despereaux
THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX [G]
review by Kilian Melloy
As far a animated pictures about brave little mice go, you can’t do better than The Tale Of Despereaux. But the film, being a curious cross-section of narrative complexity and top-flight CGI, may be a bit too complicated for little kids. Adults, on the other hand, are likely to enjoy the movie’s action-adventure heroics and dark palette of color and mood–not to mention its sense of humor.
“The Tale Of Despereaux,” based on a book by Kate DeCamillo, is a modern fairy tale set in an appropriately vague place (a kingdom where soup is the highest culinary art and everyone has British accents) and time (the Middle Ages, more or less; an age of three-masted sailing ships and talking rodents). The instructional subtext of the tale has to do with life’s difficult, complex emotional states: how grief can unhinge reasonable people, how forgiveness can [...]
Original post by Robert Newton
Review - Delgo
DELGO [PG]
review by Robert Newton
Blurb scrawlers would be quick to come up with a quotable nugget to describe the animated fantasy Delgo, and might draft something like this: “A visually splendid alien ‘Romeo and Juliet’.” We would say the same thing, only if our review were to be cited in marketing materials, it would have to contain an ellipsis after the quote, those unimposing three dots denoting that some text has been excised. In this case, that text would be the words “with a story that is as uninventive as it is predictable.”
Delgo (voiced by Freddie Prinze Jr.) is a poor Lockni boy who falls for Kyla (Jennifer Love Hewitt), a Nohrin princess. The Lockni are a reptilian-looking race of peaceful people, but their oppression by the winged Nohrin is being seriously tested. With the threat of war looming, Delgo and Kyla must defuse the tensions while routing out the [...]
Original post by Robert Newton
Review - The Day The Earth Stood Still
THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL [PG-13]
review by Padraic Maroney
As the holidays get closer, only two kinds of movies come out: those attempting to achieve Oscar gold (which for the most part aren’t seen by the general public until their New Year rollouts) and the brain candy that lets you forget about maxing out your credit cards at the mall. Which kind of movie is The Day The Earth Stood Still? Let’s just say that Meryl Streep isn’t going to lose any sleep.
Keanu Reeves has been mercilessly ridiculed for his robotic and monotonic acting style. Taking on the role of an alien that comes to save Earth and has no emotional capabilities would therefore seem like a role tailor-made for the enduring action star. In the remake of the 1952 sci-fi classic, Reeves uses the lack of emotions as a way to seem only more vacant than usual.
When surrounded by [...]
Original post by Robert Newton
Review - Nothing Like The Holidays
NOTHING LIKE THE HOLIDAYS [PG-13]
review by Kilian Melloy
The Rodriguez clan, a boisterous family of Puerto Rican-Americans, gather at the family home in Chicago for Christmas, setting in motion this sweet, though predictable, film by director Alfredo de Villa.
This is a genre picture through and through, and as such it obeys the rules of its formula. There’s a kindly, if physically imposing, patriarch, Edy Rodriguez (Alfred Molina); his wife of 36 years, Anna (Elizabeth Peña); and a brood of three kids, brothers Mauricio (John Leguizamo) and Jesse (Freddy Rodriguez), and their sister, middle child Roxanna (Vanessa Ferlito).
The parents and children of the Rodriguez clan have secrets, significant others and traumas to sort through. Edy wants to put off such business until after the holidays, so as to be able to focus fully on enjoying the kids’ visits; what the script, by Alison Swan and Rick Najera points out is that messy [...]
Original post by Robert Newton
Review - Cadillac Records
CADILLAC RECORDS [R]
review by Robert Nesti
One of the pivotal songs in 2006’s “Dreamgirls” is “Cadillac Car,” a doo-woppish ode to the status of the luxury car to various cultures in 1950s America. There are plenty of Cadillacs in Cadillac Records, many used anachronistically as its story moves from the early 1940s the late 1960s in telling the story (as “Dreamgirls” did) of the rise of a record label for black artists and pop music. Certainly the cars perform the same function as they did in the song from the earlier film — sleek and elegant, ownership of the finned vehicles meant that you were indeed a star.
In the film, written and directed by Darnell Martin, Cadillacs and stardom are intrinsically linked in the career of Muddy Waters (Jeffrey Wright), the great bluesman who established Chess Records with his raucous blues guitar. He was paid in Cadillacs by Leonard Chess (Adrien [...]
Original post by Robert Newton
Review - Punisher: War Zone
PUNISHER: WAR ZONE [R]
review by Howie Green
Okay, so when you go to see a movie called Punisher: War Zone, about Marvel Comics’ vengeance-bent character The Punisher, you know you’re not exactly in for a feel-good date movie. Frank Castle (Ray Stevenson) a.k.a. The Punisher is an all-out vigilante who, armed with an endless arsenal of guns and ammo, dishes up stacks of dead bodies and boatloads of violence, but, you know, it’s OK, because he’s one of the good guys. According to the Punisher’s back story, it’s OK that he kills or destroys everyone he doesn’t like because his wife and two small kids got killed by the mob after witnessing a mob hit and ever since then Mr. The Punisher has been on a rampage, a one-man army bent on personally killing every bad guy he can find.
This is the third movie featuring The Punisher, and unlike the previous [...]
Original post by Robert Newton