Monday, December 10, 2012
The holidays are a great time to get a head start on Oscar viewing!
December is Oscar time. Filmmakers need to get their movies under the wire so they'll be in contention for this year's awards. Consequently this month is a weird mix of crowd-pleasing mediocrity and painfully long masterpieces that mix horribly with a need for fluff. But what is a movie lover to do? Gotta see them! Having only viewed two of these films (Lincoln and Silver Linings Playbook), I'm as in the dark (as it were) as you all are about how truly great these movies are, and how they measure up to each other as far as acting and scripting are concerned. All I know is what I hear, and I'm hearing a lot. All the critics associations are putting together their lists of bests, and they all influence how the Oscars go. So far, these are …
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Fifth and last in the blockbuster film series debuts, based on novels by Stephenie Meyer. Rated PG-13.
The big finale of the Twilight Saga needs no help from anyone beyond their fans, thank you very much. You need but look to the scores of Twihards who lined up at movie theaters around the world over a week before the premiere. These fans can rest easy. Director Bill Condon (Gods and Monsters, Dreamgirls) gives them exactly what they expect. For the rest of the planet, it feels cliched and fangless until a rousing last act climbs so over the top it makes it almost worth the price of admission. The plot centers on concern that the old guard of vampires in charge, the Volturi, may want to eliminate what they see as a threat in Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward's (Robert Pattinson) newborn little girl. So, it's time to activate the Cullen…
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones elevate what should be called ‘Mope Springs’: Marriage Melancholia.
In a world where teenagers are the stars and films are green-lit based on the number of explosions, it behooves us adults to put our cinematic money where our mouths are and support films with actors who stand for the older members of the audience. Hope Springs is about a couple, played by Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones, who have been married for 31 years. They venture (at the behest of Streep's character) to Maine to attend a week of intensive marriage counseling to try to bring back the intimacy missing in their relationship. Make no mistake. This is a movie that has the single worst marketing campaign of the year to date. Hope Springs is less Woody Allen and more Ingmar Bergman. It has its funny moments, most of which are …
