Category: Film Review

“Ender’s Game,” based on the beloved, lauded 1985 book by Orson Scott
Card, finally blasts its way to the big screen after decades of
development. There’s franchise gold in them thar hills, with the
production carefully mounting what appears to be a story that could
carry on for multiple films, following the titular character as he
journeys from an awestruck boy to an intergalactic lawman, complete with
elaborate training missions and enormous space battles. While ambitious
and exceedingly well designed, “Ender’s Game” is mummified in the drama
department. It’s absolutely cold to the touch, with clumsy scenes
sapping power from the material’s thought-provoking commentary on war,
leaving writer/director Gavin Hood with a gorgeous picture that retains
very little spirit.
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“Blue Is the Warmest Color” is generating a considerable amount of
controversy due to its explicit content, with an eight-minute-long
lesbian sex scene helping the film receive the dreaded NC-17 stamp from
the MPAA. It’s actually amusing to see the movie’s release trigger such
uptightness because the sex adds up to a mere eight minutes out of 180 minutes
of screen time. It’s hardly a concern with a picture this ponderous,
acting more as smelling salts for this French after school special,
which is so distracted with its verite execution, it leaves out any
sense of emotional urgency. “Blue Is the Warmest Color” take three hours
to tell a story that tops out at 90 minutes, 98 if you leave in the
bumping and grinding. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Not every animated film needs to be an event, but “Free Birds” could use
a little more oomph to make it a must-see for crowds currently starving
for family entertainment. It’s not particularly exciting, never lands a
laugh, and doesn’t have the ambition to truly lampoon Thanksgiving
traditions. It’s a bland effort that’s contently cartoon until it
suddenly feels the need to trigger emotions with weird detours into
death and survival. Perhaps the idea looked better on paper. As a
CG-animated endeavor, “Free Birds” packs very little punch, with wild
mood swings that take a simple story and needlessly complicates it to
fill a contractual run time.
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Star power is a rare thing, but it’s important, often helping mediocre
work find its footing through exceptional acting, guiding dramatic
direction when the production itself can’t manage the task. With iconic
actor Michael Caine, talent was established long ago, and while his
taste in screenplays isn’t always inspiring, his clarity of
communication is never in doubt. “Last Love” is his latest endeavor
after receiving a late-inning career boost due to his collaborations
with Christopher Nolan, and the feature benefits mightily from his
effortless presence. Skillfully conveying the ache, newfound elevation,
and confusion required of him, Caine is terrific here, making “Last
Love” and its ultimate third-act nosedive palatable, even profound
during a few scenes of intimate soul searching.
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After the release of three hugely successful “Jackass” movies, it’s time
for the bruised and battered boys to rest their weary bones for a
spell. Picking up the franchise slack is “Bad Grandpa,” a spin-off
feature highlighting the antics of Irving Zisman, a senior citizen
character portrayed by Johnny Knoxville. Stripped of anarchic monkey
business, the “Jackass” team has cooked up a new direction for the brand
name, mixing a scripted story with “Candid Camera” style segments that
allow for a display of their wince-inducing sense of humor without the
burden of artificial male bonding. “Bad Grandpa” is certainly crude, but
it’s also riotously funny at times, with a bizarre calmness about it
that’s immensely appealing, toning down the cruelty to play some
old-fashioned pranks on a semi-suspecting public.
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Beloved for novels such as “No Country for Old Men,” “The Road,” and
“All the Pretty Horses,” author Cormac McCarthy becomes a full-fledged
Hollywood player with “The Counselor,” his first original work written
directly for the screen. Teeming with unsavory, duplicitous,
philosophical types that normally populate his books, “The Counselor” is
ripe with McCarthyisms, while director Ridley Scott takes the mission
of adaptation seriously, working to preserve the vagueness and violence
of the effort. It’s a dark film, offering unsettling images and
uncomfortable situations, and it has moments of greatness, just not
enough of them to generate a riveting sit.
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This re-release of 1973’s “The Wicker Man” is labeled “The Final Cut” to
provide a little marketing muscle, suggesting director Robin Hardy has
finally had his way with the feature 40 years after its debut. There
have been multiple versions of the movie, created from various source
materials, yet “The Final Cut” promises a definitive construction of
screenwriter Anthony Shaffer’s tale of pagan manipulation and Christian
fury. Perhaps in Hardy’s eyes, this is the last word on “The Wicker
Man,” but instead of engorging the effort with additional secrets and
oddity, he’s trimmed the picture in a peculiar manner, attempting to cut
to the chase to limit any initial disinterest in crucial
characterization.
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“Concussion” is a small package, remaining intimate with its characters
and composed with its drama. It’s a story of female sexuality told with
interest in the subject, not just flying a flag of womanliness to
attract a male audience. It’s tasteful work about a salacious subject,
with writer/director Stacie Passon taking tremendous care with the
subtleties of the story, sacrificing narrative drive to perfect moments
of human connection and the parched crawl of lust. “Concussion” isn’t
what it appears to be, making a considerable effort to upend
expectations and carry onward with determination, working to scrape away
the artificiality of female desire to survey an uneasy spot of
dissatisfaction most viewers may identify with.
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Reviewed at the 2013 Twin Cities Film Festival

“How I Live Now” has no idea what type of movie it wants to be, so it
becomes them all. A scattered, meaningless war drama, the film comes
from director Kevin Macdonald, who’s made some impressive features (“One
Day in September,” “The Last King of Scotland”) and some duds (“The
Eagle”). He’s an interesting helmer who normally has a vision for his
efforts, but this one eludes him, to a degree where it begins to feel
more like punishment than suspense. “How I Live Now” isn’t a mess, but
it’s indirect, irritatingly so, wasting a tempting premise on half-baked
emotions and aimless moments of distress that should be far more
penetrating than they actually are.
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“Zaytoun” is often strong stuff, depicting acts of violence with a
merciless abruptness that triggers the requisite amount of shock. The
harshness of select scenes contrast intriguingly with the picture’s
overall gentle demeanor, depicting a wartime friendship between sworn
enemies, developed over time and through various acts of trust. We’ve
seen this type of story before, and the production doesn’t try to avoid
familiarity, offering the viewer a customary offering of feel-good
cinema set during a horrifying time of loss. The movie means well
enough, yet “Zaytoun” doesn’t do enough to upset expectations, trusting
in the power of warm orchestral strings and softening demeanors to coax
the viewer into a deceptive comfort zone.
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Reviewed at the 2013 Twin Cities Film Festival

The trouble with no-budget filmmaking is that productions often feel
they deserve a badge for completing a movie with limited funds. As
though there’s a participation ribbon to be collected just for showing
up. The comedy “Screwed” was made for $1,400, which sounds like a
laudable accomplishment until you see the feature, than it becomes
painfully clear that additional monetary lubrication was in order.
Amateurishly shot and assembled, while the clichéd screenplay saps the
last drop of promise from the picture, “Screwed” is a chore to sit
through, never landing a joke properly or seeing its oddball premise to
its natural conclusion.
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“The Fifth Estate” aspires to be a stirring investigative film
dissecting a combustible situation where truth is unfiltered,
participants unsecured, and the ultimate end game is hazy at best. For
this type of cinema to work, it needs a lead character who’s worth
following. He can be irredeemable and destructive, but has to retain a
depth of personality that rewards over two hours of screen time. I’m not
sure Julian Assange is worth the investment, at least not in the way
“The Fifth Estate” depicts him. A hopelessly dull picture concerning a
fiery situation of exposure and betrayal, the feature looks to dazzle
the viewer with aggressive acting and whip-crack globetrotting intrigue,
yet director Bill Condon feels like he’s dog paddling with material
that demands an emphatic front crawl.
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I believe most people understand the legendary talents and showmanship
of boxer Muhammad Ali. Less appreciated is his refusal to participate in
the Vietnam War during the height of his fighting career, putting his
entire life at risk to stand up for his principles, shaped during his
transition to the Muslim faith. Eschewing tales of boxing greatness to
inspect Ali as a man on a mission of self-preservation, director Bill
Siegel (“The Weather Underground”) finds a fascinating angle to explore,
detailing Ali’s war of words and legal tangles as he took on the U.S
Government, combative media types, and the court of public opinion to
stick up for his controversial beliefs.
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“Escape Plan” is the kind of film that’s very entertaining, providing
some bang for the buck, but it’s rarely fun in a throw down,
screen-go-boom type of way. A prison escape picture starring action
titans Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, the feature has all
the opportunity in the world to go completely nuts, matching the
absurdity of the plot with a bit of directorial lunacy that keeps the
effort sufficiently lubed with pure escapism. Instead, “Escape Plan” is
merely serviceable with the rare moment of true inspiration, strangely
dialing down the potential for blast ‘em insanity to carry on coldly,
taking the mechanics of the titular scheme way too seriously.
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It’s difficult to treat “Carrie” too preciously. After all, the 1974
Stephen King novel has seen its fair share of screen incarnations,
including the itchy 1976 classic from director Brian De Palma, a 1999
sequel (“The Rage: Carrie 2”), and a 2002 television movie. That
Hollywood has renewed interest in the material makes perfect sense,
though this version is more of a remake than a fresh realization of
King’s original book. Playing it safe to appeal to a generation that
hasn’t been exposed to this tale of telekinetic woe, the new “Carrie” is
much like the old “Carrie,” only now the mayhem is more hard
drive-based than wonderfully, inventively practical.
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After winning an Academy Award for 2007’s “Juno,” her first produced
screenplay, writer Diablo Cody has finally graduated to the director’s
chair with “Paradise.” In the interim, she flirted with horror
(“Jennifer’s Body”) and achieved greatness with dark comedy (“Young
Adult”), yet the saucy stuff doesn’t appeal to Cody for her helming
debut. “Paradise” doesn’t play it safe but it does play it soft, pulling
the teeth out of a fascinating story that concerns the rejection of
religion and a brush with death, trying to pass the endeavor off as a
feel-good movie about life and love. The sentiment doesn’t adhere, but
the simplicity of the picture is agreeable, with Cody refusing to make
the film laborious just to add weight.
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“Chinese Zodiac” is reportedly Jackie Chan’s swan song to massive action
comedies, the type that tear up the screen with slapstick of enormous
scope while celebrating the star’s inability to be killed by stunts of
his own design. If this is truly the final bow for Chan’s cartoon
persona (after all, he’s turning 60 next year), “Chinese Zodiac” is an
appropriate note to end on. Teeming with Chan’s customary choreographed
hellraising, the picture is routine but captivating in its widescreen
craftsmanship, with Chan the director making Chan the star look like a
superhero as the story smashes through all manner of infiltration and
escape while trying to impart an important lesson on the raiding of
history.
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“A.C.O.D.” (“Adult Children of Divorce”) has all the ingredients for a
rollicking comedy concerning the battlefield of troubled relationships.
It offers a familiar but promising premise and features a cast of
profoundly funny people eager to tickle the audience. Sadly, the movie
just doesn’t lift off the ground, burdened by disappointing direction
and crummy editing, which never finds the ideal timing this type of
venture deserves. “A.C.O.D.” has a few moments that shine, but the rest
is shockingly leaden and clumsy, feeling around for a heart it hasn’t
earned and for laughs that seldom arrive.
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The documentary “Money for Nothing: Inside the Federal Reserve” wasn’t
planning on a collapse of government when it was originally assembled,
but talk about primo release timing. Issued during a tempestuous era
where leaders willingly turn their backs on their constituents and
America’s financial future appears impossibly bleak, the picture looks
to dissect some of the country’s more pressing monetary woes, hoping to
give the average viewer a working knowledge of a complex system that
basically steers the future of the nation. There are times when the
movie seems expressly built for economists, yet there’s enough visual
hand-holding in “Money for Nothing” to make its behemoth target
understandable in a rudimentary way.
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If all went according to plan, “Dark Blood” would’ve been released in
1994, and we would be coming up on its 20th anniversary. But something
went horribly wrong during the film’s shoot, with star River Phoenix
dying from a drug overdose in 1993, leaving the picture with 80% of its
scenes completed. Shelved and forgotten, “Dark Blood” was left as a
curiosity, leaving fans of Phoenix to wonder what exactly was left
behind, possibly displaying the actor in an unfavorable light. Facing
his own medical crisis 15 years after production was halted, director
George Sluizer decided to rebuild the movie as a way of confronting
unfinished business, finally bringing the feature to the public in
semi-finished form.
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