The Greatest Generation? Jolie and Eastwood’s War Movies, and SelmaUnbroken, the second film from Angelina Jolie, Professional Film Director, chronicles the ordeal of Olympic athlete and WWII soldier Louis Zamperini (Jack O’Connell), who goes from scrappy troublemaker to Olympic track star to, eventually, prisoner… Dec 25 14December 25, 2014Article at The L Magazine
Big Eyes, Into the Woods, and Big-Ticket WeirdnessTim Burton’s Big Eyes could be lumped in with the count-em-three other biographical movies opening on Christmas Day, being that it’s Burton’s first true-ish story since Ed Wood twenty years ago. But it’s also a reunion with Wood screenwriters Scott… Dec 23 14December 23, 2014Article at The L Magazine
Into The Woods is a Rob Marshall musical that’s not ashamed to be a musicalSo far, Rob Marshall’s career as a director of movie musicals has been marked by what seems like embarrassment over the form—a particularly strange trademark, given his origins as a choreographer and director of musical theater. In his film versions… Dec 23 14December 23, 2014Article at The A.V. Club
Night at the Museum: Secret of the TombNight at the Museum is the most financially successful of 20th Century Fox’s three family-centric trilogies of the past decade, with bigger special effects than the Wimpy Kid series and, one would hope, more adult appeal than the hallowed Chipmunks… Dec 19 14December 19, 2014Article at The L Magazine
Goodbye To All That is a poor showcase of Paul Schneider’s Southern charmPaul Schneider, with his slightly nasal, airy voice and Southern politeness, has a specific energy as an actor that works wonders with certain writer-directors, like former classmate and collaborator David Gordon Green, or Cameron Crowe, who wrote… Dec 16 14December 16, 2014Article at The A.V. Club
PT Anderson, Ridley Scott, and Why We Rewatch MoviesWhen I saw Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice at the New York Film Festival a couple of months ago, I stumbled out in an appropriate but not entirely enjoyable haze. I liked so much of what I just watched, but I couldn’t quite wrap my head around… Dec 12 14December 12, 2014Article at The L Magazine
The Color Of Time finds James Franco’s ambitions again eclipsing his resultsJames Franco has a predilection for dashing among movies, books, experiments, and academia like a charismatic but perpetually late TA. It may sound exhausting, but it’s hard to deny the results—not their quality, mind, but that the results even… Dec 11 14December 11, 2014Article at The A.V. Club
A Walk to Remember: Reese Witherspoon Goes Hiking, Finds Self, in WildEarly in Wild, during one of the movie’s many flashbacks from a very long Pacific Crest Trail hike, Cheryl (Reese Witherspoon) chooses herself the new last name of Strayed, and I’m thinking: great, a scene with a big life change that looks… Dec 05 14December 05, 2014Article at The L Magazine
The Pyramid isn’t a found-footage fright flick, but it sometimes acts like oneA horror fan going to see The Pyramid might reasonably ask whether this movie, about a team of documentarians and archeologists entering a newly uncovered pyramid and making a horrific discovery, is of the found-footage subgenre. As it turns out, a… Dec 05 14December 05, 2014Article at The A.V. Club
Gillian Jacobs and Leighton Meester play platonic Life Partners drifting apart“I just wanna meet a guy I like as much as you,” Paige (Gillian Jacobs) says to Sasha (Leighton Meester). The sentiment makes sense: The co-heroines of Life Partners are made for each other, in the way that close friendships forged in young adulthood… Dec 04 14December 04, 2014Article at The A.V. Club
The Babadook: Family Film of the Year?Creepy kids are a horror movie staple, whether as sinister bad seed types or innocent victims of hauntings and possessions. Samuel (Noah Wiseman), the seven-year-old boy at the center of the spooky new Australian picture The Babadook, at first seems… Nov 28 14November 28, 2014Article at Brooklyn Magazine
Horrible Bosses 2 is less fun to watch than it probably was to makeHorrible Bosses 2 There’s a running gag in Horrible Bosses 2 about how Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) uses the Katy Perry song “Roar” as his ringtone, to get him pumped up about the business he’s starting with his buddies Dale (Charlie Day) and Nick (Jason… Nov 25 14November 25, 2014Article at The A.V. Club
Mock (Ye-ah!) Ing (Ye-ah!) Jay (Ye-ah!) PartOne (Ye-ah!)When we last left Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), she was waking up in an airplane after unexpectedly evading death in her second Hunger Games, the annual event designed to keep the various districts of the dystopian Pan-Em under control of the… Nov 21 14November 21, 2014Article at Brooklyn Magazine
Reach Me is more L.A. ensemble junk from the maker of 2 Days In The ValleyGoing by ensemble dramas set in the greater Los Angeles area, one of the worst things about living there is how it convinces certain filmmakers that the human condition can be refracted through a prism of eclectic, eccentric L.A. characters, at least… Nov 20 14November 20, 2014Article at The A.V. Club
Beyond the Lights: Love & Music StardomGina Prince-Bythewood’s Love & Basketball did respectable business during its original release, on its way to a substantial following in the nearly fifteen years that followed. Prince-Bythewood has worked steadily since her first feature, alternating… Nov 14 14November 14, 2014Article at Brooklyn Magazine
Saving Christmas is the solemn duty of this inept Kirk Cameron vehicleSaving Christmas places Kirk Cameron, who used to be on the sitcom Growing Pains, on the front lines of the war on Christmas, fighting gallantly on the side of Christmas—which is something like enlisting Ralph Malph to lead fundraising efforts for… Nov 14 14November 14, 2014Article at The A.V. Club
A Merry Friggin’ Christmas offers only the gift of seeing Robin Williams againIt makes sense that the late Robin Williams gravitated toward darker comedies later in his career, especially after years of family antics. So credit the adventurousness that got him into Death To Smoochy and World’s Greatest Dad as his possible… Nov 07 14November 07, 2014Article at The A.V. Club
21 Years is a nice, superfluous acknowledgment of Richard Linklater’s career21 Years: Richard Linklater Richard Linklater is an excellent filmmaker. This is the wildly controversial thesis put forth by 21 Years: Richard Linklater, a new documentary about the director, out just as his film Boyhood begins an awards campaign.… Nov 06 14November 06, 2014Article at The A.V. Club
Horns fumbles with its own powers, much like its heroThe first line of dialogue heard in Horns is “Are you horny?” The question is directed at Ig (Daniel Radcliffe), a character who will, shortly into the movie, wake up with devilish horns protruding from his forehead. Between the setup and the full… Oct 30 14October 30, 2014Article at The A.V. Club
Billy Crudup tunes up again in William H. Macy’s RudderlessRudderless Billy Crudup had his best year as an actor in 2000, when he played dissolute in Jesus’ Son and a musician in Almost Famous—both with seemingly effortless charm and empathy. In Rudderless, he plays a dissolute musician (though more the… Oct 16 14October 16, 2014Article at The A.V. Club
