REVIEW: Phil [2019]
“I never promised you a rose garden” We meet Phil McGuire (Greg Kinnear) exiting his parked car while still in traffic to climb up a bridge railing. It’s a one hundred-plus foot drop into the water and he imagines taking the plunge before a group of teens with cellphones outstretched jolt him from the morbid […]
REVIEW: Mary Poppins Returns [2018]
“It’s today or never” Not all live-action/animated hybrids from Disney of yesteryear live up to the nostalgic memories of youth (I’m looking at you Pete’s Dragon), but Mary Poppins is an exception. Maybe it was revisiting it after seeing the underrated Saving Mr. Banks for added context concerning craft and motivation or maybe it’s simply […]
REVIEW: Write When You Get Work [2018]
“I’m friendly” We don’t ever discover why or when high school sweethearts Ruth Duffy (Rachel Keller) and Jonny Collins (Finn Wittrock) broke up during the course of Stacy Cochran‘s Write When You Get Work. All we know are certain circumstances and thus are left to assume the rest. Maybe they tried making things work after […]
REVIEW: The Bookshop [2017]
“Where there’s life, there’s hope” Looks are deceiving with Isabel Coixet‘s The Bookshop, an adaptation of Penelope Fitzgerald‘s Booker Prize-shortlisted novel from 1978. What appears to be a run-of-the-mill drama that will surely fall into the usual clichés of perseverance and eventual victory about a woman standing up to a small town of bullies that […]
REVIEW: The Party [2017]
“Another announcement. Good God.” I admire what Sally Potter is trying to do with her black comedy The Party as experiment. She’s placed a group of friends with different political, economic, and romantic views into a single room, hanging a secret(s) over their heads with the potential to destroy their individual and communal identities. They’re […]
REVIEW: Leonie [2013]
“Don’t bore me by being ordinary” The saying goes as follows: “behind every great man stands a great woman”. No words are truer said for renowned sculptor/designer Isamu Noguchi if Hisako Matsui‘s film Leonie is any indication towards a mother’s stewardship into a life providing the freedom necessary to achieve one’s dreams. Written by the […]
REVIEW: Hugo [2011]
“Where are your designated adults?” When Hugo was announced as Martin Scorsese’s next film, little was mentioned about Brian Selznick’s Caldecott Medal-winning source material, The Invention of Hugo Cabret. The big news was the auteur relishing an opportunity to helm his first family film and willingly delve into the world of 3D—a medium seen mostly […]
REVIEW: Cars 2 [2011]
“I vant to siphon your gas” Being that I was not in what appeared to be a vast majority of people who thought Cars was ‘lesser’ Pixar, I can’t say I was too surprised to find I was on the outside of the even bigger group of critics who trashed Cars 2 as a sequel […]
REVIEW: Shutter Island [2010]
“Retreat isn’t something you consider an option” Very rarely does a film meet, let alone exceed, the expectations of the piece of literature it is based upon. With a director like Martin Scorsese, however, you do hold out hope that it will at least come close. But with postponements from the Oscar wheelhouse of a […]
REVIEW: The Pink Panther 2 [2009]
“An odd, sexy brother in a dress” Hmmm. Does America really hate itself this much? I guess it does. I’ll start off by saying how I’m not much of a fan of Peter Sellers’ Pink Panther let alone watching Steve Martin laugh himself to the bank with a couple of remakes, (I did not see […]
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