There are so many mysteries on the island that it feels like you’re never going to get any answers. Is there a safe way off? Can the others be trusted? And are dead people really trying to speak to the living? Just when your head starts to spin, you remember that Ewan McGregor is a writer, not a detective, and you’re watching The Ghost Writer, not Shutter Island. Or “Lost.”
There are so many mysteries on the island, it feels like you’re never going to get any answers. Is there a way off the island? Can the others on the island be trusted? And are dead people really speaking to the living? Just when the questions make your head start to spin, you remember that Leonardo DiCaprio wasn’t on a plane that crashed and you’re not watching “Lost,” you’re watching Shutter Island.
Cupid! Hey, Cupid! Come over here and shoot me. Right through my eye, please, because it would be less painful than having to watch Garry Marshall’s latest confectionary concoction. Valentine’s Day is already a manufactured holiday filled with cute rhymes in lacey cards, candied hearts that induce nausea, and flowers, flowers and more flowers. There’s little need for another gag-inducing love-fest unless it’s good. And Marshall’s Valentine’s Day is not.
There’s a sweetness to Alice Sebold’s 2002 mega-bestseller “The Lovely Bones” that belies the story of a young girl’s brutal rape and killing. That same sweetness, so magnificently captured on the page, is missing from Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of Sebold’s book.
The average (sex) teen-aged boy thinks (sex) about sex (sex) every 7 seconds (sex). While this might be an old wives’ tale (like that one about hairy palms) you wouldn’t know it from Youth in Revolt. It’s a quintessential coming of age story revolving around sex, sex, and more sex.
Crazy Heart could also be known as The Wrestler: The Musical: washed up has-been tries to piece together a life out of a once-successful career while fighting addiction, trying to reconcile with an estranged child, and wooing a younger woman. But whereas Mickey Rourke played a wrestler, Jeff Bridges plays singer/songwriter Bad Blake and provides a soundtrack to his misery. Fittingly, his music is the music of pain: country.
Calling 2009 a stellar year for films would be like saying you saw New Moon for the acting talents of Taylor Lautner. There were some winners, but it took some digging to come up with a Top 10 list of great films for the year.
Five minutes into A Single Man, fashion designer Tom Ford’s directorial debut, you realize you’re seeing art. At first it seems to be that highly esoteric, stylistic art meant to alienate and rise above the masses. Then the film morphs into art in its purest form. For here is a visionary creating his masterpiece and [...]
