There is no doubt that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a technical marvel, but the movie’s success is the result of a story which supports the perfectly interwoven make-up and computerized effects which permit Brad Pitt’s Button and much of the rest of the cast to convincingly age (in one direction or another). More [...]
Entries from February 2009
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
February 13th, 2009 · No Comments
Tags: Capsule · Director · Drama · Romance · Sci-Fi/Fantasy
The Reader
February 13th, 2009 · No Comments
There isn’t anything really new about The Reader. There hasn’t been a film I’ve seen in recent memory that seemed to reference so many other films. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Fanny and Alexander, Judgment at Nuremberg, The Lives of Others, Spider . . . these are the first ones that come to mind, some with an [...]
Jules and Jim
February 12th, 2009 · No Comments
For a casual screening at home with friends a couple of days before that oddity of holidays, Valentine’s Day, we chose François Truffaut’s highly-regarded 1962 film, Jules and Jim, among a group of what I thought were films with romantic themes. After it’s viewing, I can’t say exactly what Jules and Jim is, but it clearly does not qualify [...]
Tags: Capsule · Director · Drama · Foreign Language
Frozen River
February 10th, 2009 · No Comments
The experience of Frozen River is a progressively engaging one. In the tradition of the Dardennes or David Gordon Green (pre-Pineapple Express), we are immediately and non-contextually injected into the mundane lives of ordinary people, in this case Melissa Leo’s Ray and her two sons living in a deteriorating trailer on the outskirts of a small [...]
Idlewild
February 8th, 2009 · No Comments
Idlewild was the name of my hometown roller skating rink, a place where my elementary and junior high schools would occasionally have “skating parties.” Like that place, this Idlewild is an outlandish, anachronistic spectacle that allows a couple of hours to pass enjoyably enough, yet ultimately leaves a lingering sense of disappointment. There is much to admire [...]
Tags: Capsule · Drama · Musical · Romance
The Great Debaters
February 7th, 2009 · No Comments
The Great Debaters is based upon a true story, and one which deserves to be told by a first rate cast in a first rate production: that of the Wiley College debate team which rose from its humble surroundings (backwoods pre-integration Texas) to be the first black debate team to challenge (not to mention defeat) Harvard [...]
Tags: Biographical · Capsule · Drama
Cloverfield
February 7th, 2009 · No Comments
When producer J.J. Abrams and his team put together the trailer for Cloverfield, I don’t think the intent was to set my expectations so low that when I finally got around to watching the film at home, I was pleasantly surprised. Clearly the secrecy about the subject of the film and the vague trailers revealing [...]
Tags: Action/Adventure · Capsule · Popcorn · Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Man on Wire
February 5th, 2009 · No Comments
There is something extraordinary about a well-conceived documentary, such that what one would merely expect to be the telling of a historic event turns out to be a complex study of human nature, from the ordinary to the pathological. The historic event itself is clearly cinematic: Philippe Petit’s daring high-wire crossing between the twin towers of the World [...]
Tags: Capsule · Documentary
Pineapple Express
February 4th, 2009 · No Comments
Maybe it’s funny if you’re high? That’s the only explanation I can muster for why Pineapple Express, the dope buddy movie starring Seth Rogen and James Franco, exists. Even more baffling is how the film has marginally favorable scores on several of the meta-scoring sites. I did genuinely laugh twice. Once time involved an attempt by Fraco’s Saul [...]
Goya’s Ghosts
February 3rd, 2009 · No Comments
Goya’s Ghosts was mostly ignored and otherwise panned upon its release, and yet there is good reason to believe that history will eventually elevate the film’s status among the more revered works of renowned director Milos Forman’s oeuvre. Focusing less on the life of the famous Spanish painter than on the tumultuous seas of political change that [...]
Tags: Biographical · Capsule · Drama · Foreign Language
Slumdog Millionaire
February 2nd, 2009 · No Comments
I suspect that most people who consume a great deal of written and podcasted material on current cinema face the same dilemma I do: knowing when to stop reading or listening so as not to ruin the eventual experience of a film or cloud my independent experience or judgment. Before seeing Slumdog Millionaire, I thought surely [...]
Tags: Capsule · Drama · Foreign Language · Romance
Ghost Town
February 1st, 2009 · No Comments
There isn’t anything particularly original about the idea that dead people with unresolved issues remained trapped as ghosts, wandering through the world of the living. Ghost Town takes that tried concept and transforms it into a light, enjoyable comedy, with fine performances by Ricky Gervais as a curmudgeon dentist who becomes an unwilling medium, Greg [...]
Here are this morning’s Oscar-nominated films, alphabetically. The nominees for foreign language film and documentary feature are compiled at the end of the list. (Short format nominees are listed in a 
