Category: Movie Reviews
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Harry Potter and the Long Haul
It’s been ten years running. It’s gone through six cinematographers, four directors, four composers, two writers, and only one major cast change. It has made more than six billion dollars worldwide and after this weekend will likely make a half-billion more. Harry Potter has become the juggernaut that rolled over the world in the first… Read more
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Figures of speech
King of the airwaves. At some point in a performer’s career, he or she is given the opportunity to play a character that is impaired or afflicted in a way that most of us are not. In such instances, the gimmick of the performance itself is often seen as thespian brilliance (Forrest Gump) and the… Read more
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The Disquiet Man
In counterpoint to the sound and fury that signals summer’s end, Dutch director Anton Corbijn serves up a quiet meditation on the loneliness of vocational murder in The American. If The Expendables is a callback to 1980s muscle-man pics, and Machete a throwback to 1970s exploitation flicks, The American is a think-back, recollecting cold-war thrillers… Read more
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Everything old…
Never let it be said that Sylvester Stallone doesn’t know his audience. After railing against the ascent of what he calls “velcro muscles” that he claims have defined action movie stars in the last two decades, Stallone resurrects the big-muscle action movie with his 1980s throwback, The Expendables. Not since Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Predator has this… Read more
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Flags of Our Fathers
Clint Eastwood is probably one of America’s most mature contemporary directors, and I’m not talking about his age. Read more
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This Film is Not Yet Finished
It’s no real secret that a movie’s rating can affect its box-office numbers. Receiving an NC-17 rating, for example, can mean commercial death for a film. But how are these ratings achieved, and who is responsible for establishing the ratings? Read more