Andy and Lana Wachowski haven’t been able to match the brilliance of their cultural touchstone movie The Matrix with anything else they’ve done. Not with the increasingly banal sequels to the film, and certainly not with the visual f/x abomination Speed Racer. The recent Cloud Atlas was their closest effort, a thoughtful, engaging but ultimately overreaching film based on a twisty book by David Mitchell. Into this troubled oeuvre comes their latest movie, Jupiter Ascending, a…Read More
Review: Oz: The Great and Powerful
There’s a special place in cinematic history for the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz with its groundbreaking use of color, terrific visual effects and prototypical hero’s journey, wherein little Dorothy (Judy Garland) has to travel through a strange land to find her way back home to Aunty Em (Clara Blandick) and their farmhouse in Kansas. But truth be told, it’s also quite a frightening film too, with lots of dark imagery and scary creatures,…Read More
Review: Ted
A film about a foul-mouthed teddy bear and a 30-something Bostonian with a hot girlfriend and the maturity of, well, a 35yo guy who lives with a stuffed animal whose main goal in life is to get high? Indeed. And to my surprise, I found Ted to be quite hilarious, even as it was one of the crudest and most crass films I’ve seen in the theater so far this year. Then again, I’m already…Read More
Review: Black Swan
When I sat down to watch Black Swan I really had no idea what to expect, and frankly wasn’t too enthused about a film about dancers. Yes, there’s lots of drama and politics in a dance troupe – after all that’s where “prima dona” comes from — but would the prospect of watching Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis compete for the lead in a performance really be entertaining? Turns out that Black Swan is a…Read More
Review: The Book of Eli
The 23rd Psalm of the Bible, in case you haven’t memorized the entire Old Testament, goes like this: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: For thou art with me; Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies… The 23rd Psalm is also the inspiration for the dark, moody film The Book of Eli, and though…Read More