Monsters and Critics

Movies

Saturday 10 May 2008

• Tribeca Review: The Objective

  

  Director Daniel Myrick has taken his excellent work from the ultra-low-budget “Blair Witch Hunt,” added some modest resources as befits that success and come with a great little tale of suspense and horror.

• Tribeca Review: Newcastle

  

  A well meaning but ineffective coming-of-age story set on the surfing beaches of the industrial mining center of Newcastle, Australia.  Mediocre action footage and tedious angst make for a film that is an effort to watch.

• Tribeca Review: Trucker

  Half road trip and half learning how to make a home, “Trucker” gives Michelle Monaghan a chance to show what she can do and the result is encouraging, although twelve year old Jimmy Bennett nearly steals the show.

• Tribeca Review: The Caller

  Close but no cigar as a great international corporate mystery thriller slows to a crawl in a drawn out study of death.  Frank Langella and Elliott Gould should have been used better.

• Tribeca Review: Son of Rambow

  

  The most beautiful and tear jerking journey in a child’s world of make believe.  The child in us interprets Rambo and the film character never looked so good.

• Tribeca Review: Dying Breed

  

  Aussie mayhem with cannibalistic inbred idiots and upper middle class whitebread victims fail to set this film apart.  But great fun nonetheless.

• Movie Review: The Fall

  

  A movie 15 years in the making and shot across 18 countries is at last completing its journey to the big screen in limited release this Friday.  In the vein of Pan’s Labyrinth and The Wizard of Oz visionary director Tarsem has taken great pains to craft a sumptuous feast for the eye and a timeless story.   

• Movie Review: Before the Rains

  Indian director Santosh Sivan is making his English language debut with the film BEFORE THE RAINS, which is opening in limited release on May 9th in New York and Los Angeles and slightly wider on May 16th.  The multi-award winning Sivan has chosen to reset the Israeli short film “Red Roofs” in the lush mountains of southern India but illustrates the universality of the story’s themes.

• Movie Review: A Previous Engagement

  

  Don’t you wish there were more romantic comedies about women over forty?  Well you’ve got MAMA MIA coming out this summer but for those of you who can’t wait writer-director Joan Carr-Wiggin has just the ticket.  Her film is opening in limited release this Friday and promises to be a fun romp in the Mediterranean – but without the ABBA songs.

• Movie Review: Mister Lonely

  

  You come to expect the unusual from writer Harmony Korine and his latest project promises the same.  The film which contains celebrity impersonators and flying nuns is opening in limited release this Friday. It may appeal to a wider audience that at first blush.

Sunday 04 May 2008

• Movie Review: Hats Off

  

  Remarkable, inspirational, beautiful, stylish, glamorous, determined, driven, resourceful, complicated, obsessed and self-centered.  All are words that describe 93 year old actress, personality and force of nature, Mimi Wedell, who is the star of “Hats Off” the new Canobie Films Production documentary from filmmaker Jyll Johnstone.

Friday 02 May 2008

• Movie Review: Iron Man

  

  Iron Man is the first blockbuster out of the gate this comic book character laden summer of 2008. 

Thursday 01 May 2008

• Tribeca Movie Review: Katyn

  

  A towering monument to the exposure of one of the darkest secrets of the Soviet era, the Katyn massacre of 1940.  One of the best films of one of the best directors in the history of cinema.

• Tribeca Movie Review: Elite Squad (Tropa de Elite)

  A tough and realistic cop story that stays believable from beginning to end while delivering the truth about loyalty, courage and gut-wringing fear on an inner city military mission with no second chances.

• Tribeca Movie Review: A President to Remember

  An excellent execution of cinema verite’ by the man who invented the concept.  Although the facts are well known, the tone and body language of the most famous president of the 20th century tell a story all their own.

Friday 25 April 2008

• Tribeca Review: Man on Wire

  

  A great example of truth being better than fiction---a combination of “Mission Impossible”, Billy Wilder’s “Spirit of St. Louis” and Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times.” 

• Movie Review: Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay

  

  It’s not My Dinner with Andre or Judd Apatow but as a stupid ass, gutter focused, supremely silly stoner comedy, I really like it! And shock of shocks, it may be inspired by Homer’s Odyssey, the one about the dangerous quest.

Friday 18 April 2008

• Movie Review: 88 Minutes

  

  I was somewhat excited about this one, because I liked Nick of Time so much. Nick of Time takes place in real time, that is, everything on the screen is what’s happening, like 24, from the beginning of the event until its resolution. It is really an exciting and clever concept when it’s well done.

• Movie Review: Anamorph

  

  A visual treat for Dafoe fans that goes well beyond the conventional horror genre into questions of reality and fantasy and how, or if, we tell the difference.

• Movie Review: The Take

  

  Indie director Brad Furman has unleashed a powerful low budget thriller that makes good use of the talents of John Leguizamo as well as those of supporting performers Tyrese Gibson and Rosie Perez. 

• Movie Review: Constantine's Sword

  

  James Carroll goes on a crusade of his own, exposing the hypocrisy of politically motivated religion and the violence of the evangelical Jihad in our own Colorado Springs.

• Movie Review: Jellyfish (Meduzot)

  A wonderfully complex exploration into people’s attempts to control the fates and their own discovered strengths in the wake of illusory failure.