Title ▲ Tws summary Trust Year Viewable | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Second-rate performances by first-rate stars in a second-rate thriller with a heavy-handed political agenda make Arbitrage a third-rate movie. Don’t believe the praise it’s received from the Mainstream Media. They’re in love with writer-director Nicholas Jarecki’s politics more than his movie…
WikChip Image
The movie's lone shining star: Tim Roth
|
||||||
I find self-loathing shmucks more annoying than interesting. So Barney’s Version – about a dissolute TV exec played by the redoubtable Paul Giamatti – surprised me by deepening into an affecting and intriguing drama in its third reel. Based on Mordecai Richler’s final novel, its literary pedig…
WikChip Video
Solid acting enlivens a solid novel
|
||||||
Beautiful Girls & Butthead Guys should be this movie’s full title. Emotionally stunted and beer powered, the guys of Knights Ridge, Massachusetts haven’t changed much since High School, notwithstanding the random wife, another guy’s wife and the girls they can’t bring themselves to commit to. …
WikChip Video
A girl named Marty: indelibly Natalie
|
||||||
Genre movies get no better than Black Widow, a noirish crime drama that delivers just what its title promises. A stunning woman seduces rich men to marry her, kills them, absconds with their fortunes and finds her next mark. You hardly want her caught, especially if you’re a guy and she’s not…
WikChip Image
Black Widow in Bridal Mode
|
||||||
Cate Blanchett transfixes in Woody Allen’s superior dramedy Blue Jasmine. Playing the Jasmine of the title, Blanchett goes from Park Avenue socialite to broken vixen in a performance that masterfully oscillates between elegance and rawness. That last almost assures her an Academy Award nomina…
WikChip Image
The great Cate in Chanel & pearls w ...
|
||||||
Butter is rancid, a comedy devoid of laughs and full of bile. No LOLs, no guffaws, not even a single smile gets triggered by its steady stream of condescension. Mean spiritedness in a comedy can work, so long as the movie brings the laughs. If it’s unfunny, then it’s just smug, catty and mean…
WikChip Image
A figment of Hollywood imagination
|
||||||
Tom Hanks has his best role in years as Captain Rich Phillips, yet ends up second banana to the U.S. Navy in general and the SEALs in particular. The combined effect elevates Captain Phillips to true greatness. That it is also the rare history lesson delivered while still current elevates it …
WikChip Image
The real Captain Phillips in the inset
|
||||||
The eyes have it! Well, the eyes and the lies have it. The eyes belong to golden superstars Paul Newman & Elizabeth Taylor — his intense blue orbs opposite her intoxicating violet ones, no FX involved with either. The lies, well, the lies drive the story, with the fancy word “mendacity” bandied a…
WikChip Video
Liz Taylor gets sexy with Paul Newman
|
||||||
Jon Favreau clocks a home run with Chef, a flat-out fantastic little movie. Funny and feel-good, yet not fatuous, Favreau downshifts from Iron Man into an almost equally impressive result. The guy wrote the story and stars as a likable da…
WikChip Video
Kid gets Dad on Twitter
|
||||||
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.
|