Category: The Twenty-First Century
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Anna Karenina [2012] ★★★
Granted that screen and tv adaptations of Leo Tolstoy’s most popular novel are nothing new, the last being a 2000 British version. And granted that the peak is still the 1935 movie starring Greta Garbo and Fredric March. But even the most faithful fans must allow that director Joe Wright, has given Tolstoy’s novel a beguilingly…
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Sinister [2012] ★★
In this watchable but instantly forgettable horror movie, Ethan Hawke plays a true-crime writer who moves his family into a house with a dark past, without telling his wife (Juliet Rylance) and kids (Michael Hall D’Addario, Clare Foley) that bit of information. Why? He wants to write a book about the events that took place in…
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Trouble With The Curve [2012] ★★½
If you like, you can think of “Trouble with the Curve” as the anti-Twilight. It’s the opposite of an Event Movie for the fall season; instead, it’s an old-fashioned star vehicle, fashioned for the particular screen persona of Clint Eastwood. As such, it’s easy to take and lightly enjoyable. One might even call it a “nice” movie, which…
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ParaNorman [2012] ★★½
“ParaNorman” is far from being a bad movie, but one thing was running through my mind the whole time: how could kids enjoy such a dark, twisted story? And ultimately that’s my problem with it. Norman is a weird little boy who sees dead people (think “The Sixth Sense”). Even his parents think he’s weird.…
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Flight [2012] ★★★
Sometimes a great actor is all you need to turn a routine movie about addiction into something memorable. Denzel Washington, who just keeps getting better, is a sparking, snapping live wire in the role of Capt. Whip Whitaker, a commercial pilot who performs heroically in the air, but can’t control his own life on the ground. Director…
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Killer Joe [2012] ★★
Matthew McConaughey is perfectly cast as a sadistic dallas cop who works as a hit man in “Killer Joe”, but at some point I found myself curiously disengaged from this story and didn’t care what happened to everyone involved in it. That’s a damn shame, because McConaughey, who delivered such a daring performance in “Magic…
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Paranormal Activity 4 [2012] and The Apparition [2012] ★½
Paranormal Activity 4:In the 4th and hopefully final installment in this never-ending series (we can always hope), a new family witnesses the same bullshit when a woman and a child move in with them. You know the drill: Have something pop out in the dark. Wait for a scream. Then drag out the next surprise…
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Hope Springs [2012] ★★★
People over 60 talking about sex and — yikes! — having it! Welcome to “Hope Springs”, a comedy drama that qualifies as a waking nightmare for teens and infantile men whose definition of “hot” hovers around women in their 20’s. Screw them. In this delightful movie from director David Frankel (who previously worked with Meryl Streep in…
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Take This Waltz [2012] ★★★
In an interview, Director Sarah Polley said that Seth Rogen and Michelle Williams brought their characters to life in unexpected ways. Trust her, she means it. They play a married couple, Lou and Margot, whose relationship is tested when Margot finds herself attracted to their new neighbor, Daniel (played by newcomer Luke Kirby). There seems to be…
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Argo [2012] ★★★½
“Argo” is quite simply one of the best movies I’ve seen all year. It has everything one could ask for: a solid story, a superb cast playing interesting and well drawn characters, a pulse pounding climax, and the element of surprise. It’s different than anything I’ve seen all year long and that’s always a good…
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Bait [2012] and Freelancers [2012] ★½
Bait: Another “horror” movie featuring lousy actors and sharks, except it’s an Australian production and the story is set in a supermarket following a freak tsunami (how original!). You know you’re in for trouble when you find yourself rooting for the shark. Don’t even think about it. Rating: 1.5/4 Freelancers: You leave “Freelancers” wondering what…
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Wreck-It-Ralph [2012] ★★★
I approach each new Disney movie with a combination of eagerness and fear. Will it be as good as I want it to be? Where “Wreck-It-Ralph” is concerned, I knew within minutes that the answer was yes. I could tell from the look and sound of the film that it had the qualities I always sought…
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Hotel Transylvania [2012] ★★½
What this raucous 3D animated fun house lacks in originality, it makes up for in visual and vocal wit. Adam Sandler uses a hilarious Hungarian accent to voice the role of Dracula, and he is surrounded by the likes of Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Kevin James, Steve Buscemi and even David Spade. What won me over from…
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Skyfall [2012] ★★★½
There’s only one reason why “Skyfall” is the hippest, highest-octane Bond film in ages, and his name is Daniel Craig. Way before “Casino Royale” was released, the internet buzz killers were already ragging on him for being blond and blue-eyed and too short for Bond duty. Not only did Craig turn out to be the best…
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To Rome With Love [2012] ★★½
There’s nothing really wrong with a Woody Allen movie set in the Eternal city, but there’s nothing really right about it either. I had a few problems with his latest film “To Rome with Love”, but I had a good time watching it and sometimes, that’s what really matters. As usual, he has assembled an…
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Looper [2012] ★★★
The mind-blowing science fiction event of the year arrives just in time to hold back the flow of Hollywood crap that’s been infesting the multiplex. “Looper”, written and directed by Rian Johnson, will be called many things, starting with Minority Report meets Terminator. But “Looper” glows with a blue-flame intensity all its own. This mesmerizing…
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The Hidden Face [2012] ★★★
If you feel like watching something completely different from the Hollywood Formula, I encourage you to check the Spanish movie “The Hidden Face”. If you’re curious about the title, or the movie itself, I’d tell you to skip the trailer and let the film unfold its constantly surprising story as the filmmaker intended. So surprising in…
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Stolen [2012] ★½
It’s damn hard to enjoy a thriller when you don’t, won’t, can’t believe a word of it. Case in point: “Stolen”, a truly dreadful movie starring non other than Nicolas Cage. If you loved “Ghost Rider”, “Next”, “Bangkok Dangerous”, “Drive Angry”, “Trespass”, “Season of the Witch” and I dare you to say you did, you’ll…
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Frankenweenie [2012]
The Oscar for this year’s Best Animated Feature Film belongs right here, even though the ravishing movie that Tim Burton has conjured up in “Frankenweenie” isn’t strictly animated in the computer-generated sense. Burton and his team used the stop-motion technique, which means taking puppets, about a foot tall, and painstakingly moving them half a millimeter at…
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Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World [2012] ★★½
This enjoyable take on the end of the world benefits from the presence of Steve Carell who plays a lonely, heartbroken man who fears that his last days on earth will be as crappy as the rest of his life was. Then he meets his downstairs neighbor Keira Knigthley and together, they decide to go…
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