![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
![]() Depp does Dillinger — directed by Mann, in Public Enemies. This was the most promising premiere of the summer, a perfect convergence of preeminent star in a role he was born to play – one of the most significant crime figures in American history – being directed by the maestro of high-style cr…
WikChip Image
Middle American Insouciance
|
||||||
![]() Not your normal coming-of-age movie, this charming and engaging early-60s period piece seems likely to be remembered as Carey Mulligan’s coming-of-stardom vehicle. Carey who? That’s a question few will be asking after this splendid young star makes another movie or two. But wait, there’s m…
WikChip Image
The real Lynn Barber got "an education."
|
||||||
Visually scintillating, musically avant-garde, dramatically turgid: This biopic of two cultural giants goes down like Brussels sprouts instead of foie gras. IOW, it takes effort to work through the two hour running time, when it should feel like savoring a rich delicacy. Pity, since Coco & Igor…
WikChip Image
Great design barely trumps turgid drama.
|
||||||
![]() Ip Man 2 was supposed to focus on the legendary Grandmaster’s relationship with Bruce Lee, his most famous disciple. But Lee’s descendants didn’t go along with the plan, so the movie ends up being about Ip Man’s post-war struggles to establish Wing Chun kung fu in colonial Hong Kong. The resul…
WikChip Image
Ip Man teaches Wing Chun kung fu
|
||||||
“Disappointing” summer blockbusters should all be this good. It nails the target – if not the bull’s-eye – of what they’re supposed to deliver: bravura moviestar performances, spectacular visuals, manly swordplay, and a touch of romance. At almost two and a half hours, this latest incarnation o…
WikChip Image
The Tower of London in full glory.
|
||||||
![]() France et le Québec endured Jacques Mesrine’s spectacular 1960s and 70s criminal career, anointing him a media sensation in the process. The first half of this too-big-for-a-single-movie story gets told in Mesrine: Killer Instinct, the concluding chapters in Mesrine: Public Enemy #1:…
WikChip Video
Anti-hero: "Nobody kills me until I s...
|
||||||
![]() Pity poor Robert Redford. His desperate attempt to discredit 21st century military tribunals led him to craft a tortured courtroom drama that paints Lincoln’s killers as sympathetic victims of a tyrannical US government. Politics aside, The Conspirator proves hard to follow, uninvolving and o…
WikChip Image
Redford directs McAvoy towards folly.
|
||||||
![]() 13 Assassins is a perfect samurai movie, complete with the gathering of a hit-squad, an assassination-worthy villain, operatic action sequences, frequent comic relief, beautifully bucolic staging, buckets of blood and yet not a lot of gore. Action fans in general and samurai fans in particular…
WikChip Image
2 assassins in "The Town of Death"
|
||||||
![]() Your Highness dons the trappings of Ye Olde English knights and damsels, mixes in sorcerers and pagan mythology, then filters the unholy brew through a 21st century slacker’s sensibility. Such low brow humor in high brow settings makes for a fun movie if you don’t mind tongue-deeply-in-cheek c…
WikChip Video
Low Brow Humor in High Brow Settings
|
||||||
![]() Slog-a-thon. Johnny Depp, great costars, fabulous visuals: all for naught. The fourth installment of Disney’s thrill ride franchise reinforces much, mostly that more is not more when it’s a mess. A convoluted plot about the search for the Fountain of Youth scaffolds countless action sequence…
WikChip Image
Tempestuous beauty fails to catch fir...
|