Let's Talk About Movies

Category: 2/4

  • 47 Ronin [2013] ★★

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    Keanu Reeves keeps telling us that his career is not dead and buried just yet. He directed and starred in his own martial art movie “Man Of Tai Chi” earlier this year (which sucked by the way) and now he’s in a sloppy big budget fantasy adventure film called “47 Ronin”. He plays an outcast…

  • The To Do List [2013] ★★

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    What do you say about a coming-of-age movie set in 1993 and starring 29 year old Aubrey Plaza in the role of a teenager? I mean, besides WTF? “The To Do List”, like every teen comedy, makes sex its primary subject. Yet even though the film is strictly low key, it borrows a lot from other…

  • Diana [2013] ★★

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    Naomi Watts is not the first name that springs to mind as the embodiment of Lady Diana, the late princess of Wales, unlike, for instance, the role of Betty Elms in David Lynch’s “Mulholland Drive”. I give the actress credit for her commitment to this assignment, but she’s still not quite right, especially if you’ve seen…

  • Delivery Man [2013] ★★

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    Vince Vaughn plays dodgeball and crashes weddings, so why is he going soft in “Delivery Man”? Is it because it might win a pass at the box office for being so cute and family friendly? Where’s your edge man? And more importantly where are the laughs? Vaughn plays an irresponsible man who finds out that his…

  • Carrie [2013] ★★

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    There are cellphones and YouTube videos in this reboot of Stephen King’s “Carrie”. But basically audiences will mostly divide along two lines: those who think director Kimberly Peirce (“Boys Don’t Cry”) has no business remaking Brian De Palma’s 1976 movie, and those who never heard of De Palma’s controversial take on Stephen King’s novel. Your…

  • Bad Grandpa [2013] ★★

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    It’s damn hard to describe a movie like “Bad Grandpa”. It’s not exactly stupid. I mean who else would have thought of releasing a one joke movie based on Johnny Knoxville’s 86 year old character from the Jackass series? Daring might be a better word. Or even inspired, as long as your definition of inspiration includes…

  • Parkland [2013] ★★

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    Sign me up for any film that recounts the events of November 22 1963, the day John F. Kennedy, the president of the United States, was murdered. You couldn’t ask for a more intriguing premise, or a better cast, including Paul Giamatti, Marcia Gay Harden, Jeremy Strong, Billy Bob Thornton, Colin Hanks, Jacki Weaver, and Zac…

  • Machete Kills [2013] ★★

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    Welcome to B movie territory. The star of the show: Dany Trejo, who reprises his Machete role for yet another round. It’s a digital gorefest that expands on the fake trailer director Robert Rodriguez included in 2007’s “Planet Terror”. In part 1, Machete had to deal with Steven Seagal and Robert DeNiro. In part 2,…

  • Lovelace [2013] ★★

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    The story of Linda Lovelace, the 1970’s porn star who achieved worldwide fame for her performance in “Deep Throat” may not be as familiar to the present generation as it was for the people who lived during that era. That places a great deal of pressure on the people behind this film to engage us and illuminate key…

  • Escape Plan [2013] ★★

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    It would be easy to write off “Escape Plan” as the testosterone heavy version of Clint Eastwood’s “Escape from Alcatraz” and let it go at that. But unlike “Alcatraz”, which was clever and highly entertaining, this one feels impure and stupefyingly simple. Yet things begin promisingly well with Stallone playing a structural engineer who has the…

  • Man Of Tai Chi [2013] ★★

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    Keanu Reeves’ directorial debut is a mediocre…wait for it…martial arts movie. Now there’s an original idea. Such a movie is “Man of Tai Chi”, an alternatively kick-ass and clumsy piece of junk that might satisfy fans of the genre and turn off pretty much everyone else. Reeves also plays the leader of an underground fight-to-the-death…

  • Habbet Loulou [2013] ★★

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    What were they thinking? I kept asking myself that question as I plodded through the watchable but pointless first hour of this new Lebanese comedy/drama. Why bother naming your movie “Habbet Loulou” if the movie itself isn’t worthy of its title? Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that writer director Layal M.Rajha simply wanted to transplant…

  • The Family [2013] ★★

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    Robert DeNiro plays a mobster in “The Family”, the new movie from director Luc Besson (“The Professional”, “La Femme Nikita”). Last time he played the role of a mob was…10 minutes ago? Anyway he and his family are put in the witness protection program in Normandy (France, just in case), after daddy DeNiro ratted out…

  • Planes [2013] ★★

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    I admire Disney’s animated features a lot, that it hurts to actually give one of their movies a low rating. Then again I’ve never gotten a headache watching any of their previous films. Because there is no leftover story to tell from “Cars” anymore, “Planes” takes place in the same world, except that it features…well…

  • The Bling Ring [2013] ★★

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    Talented directors can miss the mark every now and then. Case in point: Sofia Coppola’s “The Bling Ring”, an empty exercise that makes “Marie Antoinette” look like “The Godfather”.  I admit: it had me going for a while. The fact based story follows Nicki (Emma Watson) and a bunch of kids who decide to rob…

  • Percy Jackson: Sea Of Monsters [2013] ★★

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    The sequel is livelier and slightly better than “The Lightning Thief”— the first of the films being made from Rick Riordan’s five “Percy Jackson” books. But that 2010 movie should have taught a lesson. Both films had potential: why not introduce a dyslexic ADHD boy and let him discover that he is a demigod and the son of…

  • Riddick [2013] ★★

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    It had me going for a while. The first 30 minutes felt like an old fashioned B western flick in which Vin Diesel’s Riddick gets dumped in the middle of nowhere and finds himself struggling to survive on a lifeless planet. Not a bad idea for a premise. But then Dave Bautista (from WWE) and…

  • The Frozen Ground [2013] ★★

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    Confession: I was a huge Nicolas Cage fan back in the 90’s and early 2000’s. “Face- Off”, “The Rock”, “Matchstick Men” and “Lord Of War” were among his best work. So what happened? “The Wicker Man”, “Ghost Rider”, “Season of the Witch”, “Stolen” and “Trespass” were just God-awful movies, we assumed that he’s only in…

  • 2 Guns [2013] ★★

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    Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg are a pleasure to watch in almost anything. But they’re both too good for a standard-issue action movie like “2 Guns”. I had a good time watching it, I can’t deny that, but the movie is full of possibilities and it sucks that only a few of them are realized.…

  • R.I.P.D [2013] ★★

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    It was a huge flop at the box office, critics destroyed it (they said it was too much like “Men in Black” but then again so what?), and the audience didn’t bother to see it. And yet “R.I.P.D” wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be. It’s not an unprecedented success (far far far…