Archive | September 2015
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Two Days, One Night
Marion Cotillard, who turns 40 today, is certainly one of our finest current film performers. She’s already won one Oscar (for 2007’s “La Vie en Rose”), she successfully (and consistently) bridges the gap between art and commerce (an array of both blockbusters and smaller, brainier fare, over the last decade), plus she can sing and play instruments. […]
“The Brood” Criterion coming!
Anyone that knows anything about home video releases, knows the that The Criterion Collection is the gold standard. If you are a director, and CC gives your film the special treatment, chances are you’ve created something wonderful. I own quite a few Criterions. Among them, Malick’s “Badlands”, Kurosawa’s “Rashomon”, Kenton’s “Island of Lost Souls”, and […]
Love & Mercy
It’s only recently that I’ve understood why Brian Wilson of “The Beach Boys” is considered a genius. I mean, I’d often heard that he was, but I just didn’t understand it. As a young boy in the seventies, I recall a lot of “Beach Boys” songs that I’d hear during summer trips down at the […]
’71
Wow. Almost a lock, to be included in my 2015 Top Ten films of the year, “’71” is a harrowing Northern Island period actioner, set in Belfast at the height of “the Troubles” in 1971. It’s an almost unbearably tense movie, that also managed to break my heart on, at least, two occasions, with its […]
Talking “The Walk”
Can I take it?…round two. Last week, I queried whether I could stand the stomach-in-your-throat thrills, of the just-released 3D IMAX “Everest”. Well…here we go again. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Philippe Petit, in the latest creation by Oscar-winning director Robert Zemeckis, “The Walk”. Mr. Petit, a French high-wire artist, famously walked between the two twin towers […]
Far from the Madding Crowd
Back on May 1st, this latest adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s 19th century novel, was being offered up as the “adult alternative”, to the over-hyped and over-stuffed “Avengers: Age of Ultron”. It was a shrewd marketing campaign, aiming the film at more mature folks, not interested in seeing superheroes pound bad guys for two-and-a-half hours. And […]
Climbing “Everest”
More and more, I ask myself if I can actually even attend these “movies”. In 2013, I was a little nervous before seeing “Gravity”. IMAX 3D, enhancing the sensation of me twirling through outer space with Sandra Bullock and George Clooney–could I handle it? I ended up adjusting quickly to that eventual Oscar-winner, but theater […]
Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me
Is it okay, if I’m not completely crazy about the Glen Campbell documentary? It’s not my practice to ask permission usually, but the buzz amongst people who’ve actually experienced it, seems to be that you are heartless, if you don’t love the film. Well, I can assure you that I’m not heartless, and that I […]
M. Night makes “The Visit”
Mr. Shyamalan…remember him? He really hasn’t gone anywhere, as roughly every two years he directs another movie. But his blockbuster hit days appear to be over, for better or for worse. Honestly, I’ve been lukewarm on him since his first big “splash”. That would be 1999’s “The Sixth Sense”, his third official feature, but easily […]
Home
This is a pretty good family film. It’s predictable and unexceptional, but it certainly has its charms. Most of that is supplied by its talented vocal cast, with Jim Parsons leading the way, as the effervescent Oh, part of an Earth-invading alien race known as the “Boov”. Parsons has strong backup too, with Steve Martin supplying […]
Reviewed by Mark Leonard 