REVIEW: Gone Girl [2014]

“Everything else is background noise” Director David Fincher‘s Gone Girl falls prey to the one thing that often prevents me from truly loving a cinematic adaptation of a novel—unquestionable faithfulness. Gillian Flynn does a wonderful job distilling her pulpy thriller into a fast-paced 149 minutes and Fincher stays true to the back and forth vantage points of Act One between Nick Dunne’s (Ben Affleck) precarious circumstances and the diary of his wife who has disappeared (Rosamund Pike‘s Amy) before all hell breaks loose. It’s perfectly reformed with enough visual detail…

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REVIEW: The Great Gatsby [2013]

“Once again I was within and without” Visionary filmmaker Baz Luhrmann returns with a big screen adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s magnum opus The Great Gatsby, filmed in the ostentatious aesthetic that made his jukebox musical Moulin Rouge! such a divisively stunning work. Love him or hate him, no one can deny the man has style or the ego necessary to transform iconic literature and historical eras into contemporary art-infused visual epics that overwhelm our senses. No one does excess better—over-cranked and pulsing to music intentionally subverting the subject matter…

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REVIEW: Midnight in Paris [2011]

“Nostalgia is denial” Who knew Woody Allen could be so whimsical? I guess to ardent fans of the auteur, this question may seem ridiculous—either I’m uneducated to think he wasn’t or I’m oblivious to not realize he always was. Whichever side of the fence you fall on, nothing will deter my, quite possibly premature, musing that Midnight in Paris is my new favorite Woody film. I haven’t seen many, including barely any before Celebrity, (as in all his classics), but there is just something about this movie that put a…

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REVIEW: The Extra Man [2010]

“You may write my biography, but you will never capture my soul” Over the past two years I’ve become acquainted with the work of writer Jonathan Ames through his subtly brilliant comic noir “Bored to Death” on HBO. Naming the protagonist after himself, the young novelist—played by Jason Schwartzman—is a mess of neuroses and a man of eccentric proclivities who’s friends are a bullish depressive and a youthful older colleague and mentor. One can see striking similarities to those tropes in the new film from American Splendor directors, Robert Pulcini…

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REVIEW: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button [2008]

“It was nice to have met you” It’s an unlikely source, but an effective one—David Fincher giving us a heartbreaking tale of love discovered, lost, found, and forever enduring. The man responsible for bringing to screen the ultra-sick mind of a serial killer in Seven, the warped sensibilities of Chuck Palahniuk with Fight Club, and the dark streets of a city in fear with Zodiac has crafted a beautifully lyrical film of love and its always-difficult journey. Based on a short story from F. Scott Fitzgerald, screenwriter Eric Roth has…

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