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.
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.
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.
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 [...]
There’s nothing better than an uplifting movie to please the masses that’s released just in time for the holidays. And if it involves sports, score! In fact, this year there are two to pick from, both focusing on a person who inspires others to achieve athletic greatness: The Blind Side starring Sandra Bullock and Invictus [...]
Tom Ford’s directorial debut, A Single Man, is quite possible one of the best films of the year. Not to mention, Colin Firth’s performance is surely to garner an Oscar nod. Go see it on December 11.
The long and winding road leads… well, I don’t know where. In The Road, based on Cormac McCarthy’s recent short novel, it seemingly leads to hell.
McCarthy’s writing is also the basis for the Oscar-winning No Country for Old Men; his latest work is more like “No Old Men in the Country,” with most of the weak and infirm having perished after an undefined apocalypse. There’s a shared bleakness in both stories, a belief that evil exists in the world, and it is on the verge of invading your life.
