Movie Reviews
Breaking Upwards
On DVD
Mar 21, 2011
Breaking up is hard. Twentysomethings who prefer to wing it as bachelors are largely motivated by this fact. Relationships can be great but when they don't work out--for whatever reason--the damage is irreversible. Significant others take a part of us when they leave our lives and for that reason we feel angry, cheated, sad or even dumbfounded that things turned out the way they did. In Daryl Wein's Breaking Upwards, the onscreen romantic couple is aware of the void caused by breaking up--so they decide to marginalize the pain by breaking up...slowly. Inspired by an actual experiment ...
Jane Eyre
In Theaters
Mar 10, 2011
Much of the appeal to Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre (published in 1847) comes in its episodic-like operatic fervor. As it moves through its topical sections, highlighting issues from class struggles to gothic motifs, there is a persistent sense of rejuvenation in the text. It's a rich piece of source material and it should come as no surprise that Cary Fukunaga's version of Jane Eyre is the sixteenth film adaptation to hit the screens. Fukunaga, the breakout director of the Sundance-winning drama Sin Nombre, brings some much needed freshness to an otherwise drained template: the starchy European ...
Win Win
In Theaters
Mar 07, 2011
Paul Giamatti has been pigeonholed into the lovable loser role almost by popular demand. It's the rare exception where we don't mind an actor to show up, hit familiar notes and add depth to familiar screen material. In fact, I sometimes find myself sometimes searching Giamatti's DVD filmography for his more offbeat roles in past films like Donnie Brasco and Man On The Moon just for a change of scenery. Still, the Oscar-nominated thesp remains a solid bet for getting us more involved in films that on the surface should be dead in the water. Leave it ...
The Adjustment Bureau
In Theaters
Mar 04, 2011
Steven Spielberg's masterful Minority Report was based on material by Philip K. Dick and the film explored the ethics of fate, chance and consequence. In that film, police officers were assigned to a "pre-crime" unit where they were able to pinpoint criminals (with cognitive assistance) and arrest them before the crimes actually occurred. Of course, the dilemma there is that since the crime never happens, are these people really guilty? It's an interesting crisis and now director George Nolfi (who wrote The Bourne Ultimatum) brings us The Adjustment Bureau, another Dick adaptation, which is a film that tries ...
Take Me Home Tonight
In Theaters
Feb 25, 2011
So many comedies which focus on a certain era try to bank on the ironies and now-seen hilarities that those environments offered. For example when it came to 80s nostalgia, Hot Tub Time Machine bursted at the seams with tongue-in-cheek winks and high-fives. Ironically enough, for a comedy about the 80s, most of its laughs came from the character interaction and chemistry as opposed to any of the period props (leggings, hair spray and tacky turtlenecks). So what's the lesson learned? Story always wins over spectacle. Flash forward to spring 2011 and we now have Take Me Home Tonight ...
Cedar Rapids
In Theaters
Feb 11, 2011
Ed Helms (The Hangover, TV's The Office) has the movie nice guy routine down pat. From the conservative wardrobe to his screen characters' always-non-judgmental demeanor, Helms manages to make every "ordinary guy" he plays come across as both believable and always vulnerable to danger. In Miguel Arteta's Cedar Rapids, Helms plays Tim Lipee, an insurance sales agent for Wisconsin's Brown Star Insurance and the thesp fits the bill perfectly. From his positive outlook on his community to his tight-lipped sexual service to his older, former school teacher Macy Vanderhei (the always welcomed Sigourney Weaver), Lippe's universe ...
Screenshot for May 9th
CANON T3i Has Arrived
"Last month Canon unveiled the Rebel T3i (EOS 600D) upper entry-level DSLR. It continues to use the 18MP CMOS sensor seen in the Rebel T2i (550D) but gains a tilt and swivel 1,040k dot LCD monitor like the one offered on the more expensive 60D. It also gains the ability to remotely ...
France's "Sleepless Night" Finds Theatrical, VOD Distrib In Tribeca Film
One of the more talked about buys at this year's American Film Market (AFM) is that of Tribeca Film's acquisition of Frederic Jardin's Sleepless Nights. Reuters has the story:
"Tribeca will release Sleepless in 2012 both theatrically and on video-on-demand. It bought the rights from Bac Films, which will release the film in France and is handling ...
