Category: drama
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Amour [2012] ★★★½
What can you say about a film that is so vividly real, and so intense, that it holds you spellbound for two hours, without letup? “Amour” would be superior filmmaking under any circumstances. With rare subtlety and transforming art, the remarkable writer-director Michael Haneke takes us into the emotional heart of an old french couple. Both are…
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Zero Dark Thirty [2012] ★★
Finally Hollywood has produced a movie that dramatizes the hunt for Osama Bin Laden. Lol as if you didn’t see that coming. In a nutshell, “Zero Dark Thirty” is the most overrated movie of 2012. Overrated because it’s been nominated for a best picture Oscar and everyone is talking about director Kathryn Bigelow’s wonderful achievement.…
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Hyde Park On Hudson [2012] ★★½
Sometimes, a solid performance makes a movie worth watching. Case in point: Bill Murray, who portrays President Franklin D. Roosevelt in this charming little movie that takes place in the summer of 1939. The story focuses on Roosevelt’s distant cousin Daisy Suckley (Laura Linney) and her relationship with the President. Director Roger Michell imagines what may have happened…
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Lincoln [2012]
I sometimes recoil when people start spreading Oscar buzz about a movie I haven’t seen. Yet I’m willing to forgive this year’s campaign for “Lincoln” because it’s such a terrific movie. At first glance, it sounds like another history lesson about the last four months in the life of America’s 16th president, Abraham Lincoln. Instead, “Lincoln” is a crowning…
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Stand Up Guys [2012] ★½
Excuse my sarcasm but why in hell do Studios always choose January to bury their misfires? They must think we won’t notice, distracted by award season and all. But we do, especially when it’s a film starring legendary actors Al Pacino and Christopher Walken. I’m talking about “Stand Up Guys”, a sorry excuse of a movie about…
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Les Misérables [2012] ★★★
Tom Hooper’s flawed but frequently dazzling “Les Misérables” is a hot-blooded musical fantasia full of songs, songs and more songs. There’s barely any spoken dialogue so basically everyone sings for nearly three hours without giving us a chance to take a deep breath! If this isn’t your cup of tea, now’s your chance to run for the…
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Cloud Atlas [2012] ★★½
“Cloud Atlas” is a movie that offers a grandiose and a disappointing experience at the same time. It flirts with greatness and has much to admire, including exceptional performances from Tom Hanks, Jim Broadbent and Hugo Weaving. Their work is reason enough to recommend the film, yet when the movie ended I didn’t know what to make of…
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The Impossible [2012] ★★★
For a film that is alternately emotional, “The Impossible” grabs your attention with a scene worthy of a high-end disaster movie: an incredible depiction of a tsunami. Knowing that it’s coming, as many people will from the previews and advertisements, won’t lessen the impact of this tour de force, which is frighteningly believable in every…
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Life Of Pi [2012] ★★★½
This visually stunning film deserves all the praise it’s been receiving. And we owe it all to director Ang Lee and his wonderful imagination. Everything about it is outstanding, especially when you consider that it is based on a book many considered unfilmable. So what’s it about? Actually, it’s about many things, but first and…
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Silver Linings Playbook [2012] ★★★
You will hear a lot about this movie. But first you’ll hear it from me. It’s damn rare these days to encounter a film that doesn’t rely on cheap tricks and a predictable script. That’s one reason why “Silver Linings Playbook” is so good. The characters in it are like nothing we’ve seen before, and…
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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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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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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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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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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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Magic Mike [2012] ★★
All the women in the world are lining up to see “Magic Mike”. Why? Because it stars Channing Tatum (yep that dude from “Dear John and “The Vow”) as a stripper. Sounds like the movie event of the year no? Not really. Stripping aside, the plot couldn’t be more predictable. The problem lies not entirely…
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Lawless [2012] ★★★
Tom Hardy starring in this fact based story about The Bondurant brothers alongside Shia LaBeouf , Jessica Chastain and Guy Pearce sounds like Oscar Bait. It isn’t. And the sooner you accept it, the more fun you’ll have at this satisfying crime drama. To be completely honest, there’s no reason “Lawless” should play as well as it does; it’s…
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The Perks Of Being A Wallflower [2012] ★★★
If you’ve read the book version of “The perks of Being a Wallflower”, you already know what it’s about. I had the advantage of not knowing anything when I saw it today, which made it all the more enjoyable. What seems to be a typical coming of age movie (at least from its trailer) turns out…
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The Magic Of Belle Isle [2012] ★★½
Since multiplexes are crammed with lousy movies this month (with the exception of the solid “The Amazing Spider-Man), you might want to run to your nearest DVD store and get this feel good, family friendly film. Plus the fact that it stars the great Morgan Freeman is reason enough to check it out. It’s not…
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