American movies are notoriously short on surprises, but that isn’t always the case with global fare. The Irish film The Guard has several surprises, mostly character-driven, that make it seem fresh and original. It has the same casually profane tone punctuated […]
Continue reading »Category: Recent Releases
Real Steel (2011) ✰ ✰ ✰ ½
Richard Matheson’s story “Steel” was first adapted as a memorable “Twilight Zone” episode starring Lee Marvin. Now it has found new life as a futuristic robot boxing feature film — and it’s very good. Director Shawn Levy has created a […]
Continue reading »Drive (2011) ✰ ✰ ½
The set-up is intriguing: movie stunt driver Ryan Gosling moonlights as a getaway driver for whoever is willing to pay for his services. He becomes attached to a neighbor woman (Carey Mulligan) with a young son (Kaden Leos) — and […]
Continue reading »The Ides of March (2011) ✰ ✰ ✰
George Clooney deserves credit for directing another film that is smart and classy without reducing its melodrama into fights and gun battles, as so many modern movies do. The Ides of March, based upon Beau Willimon’s play “Farragut North,” is […]
Continue reading »The Thing (2011) ✰ ✰ ½
Having loved both the 1951 and 1982 editions of this sci-fi classic (and written a comparison of them in Volume 4, Issue 2), I was dubious about yet another version. Especially after seeing the first preview, which I felt was […]
Continue reading »My Afternoons with Margueritte (2011) ✰ ✰ ✰
There are some movies, of which La Tete en Friche stands as a shining example, that could or would never be made in America. With its title transposed into the more prosaic My Afternoons with Margueritte, this French film by Jean […]
Continue reading »Moneyball (2011) ✰ ✰ ✰
While not the masterpiece that some critics are making it out to be, Moneyball is a darn good baseball movie, one that eschews traditional diamond-based heroics or comedy for a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the process of how a team is built. […]
Continue reading »Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011) ✰ ✰ ✰
My short review would be: Not enough Crazy, thankfully not very Stupid, could have used more Love. What that translates to is that this dramatic comedy directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa does not quite fulfill its title. Sure, […]
Continue reading »Apollo 18 (2011) ✰ ✰ ½
Pseudo-documentaries with horror aspects have become relatively commonplace since the surprise hit The Blair Witch Project back in 1999, and with good reason: it is seemingly easy to create “lost footage” which, when suddenly, conveniently found, tells some very harrowing tales. […]
Continue reading »Sarah’s Key (2011) ✰ ✰ ✰ ½
A journalist in France (Kristin Scott-Thomas) in a rocky marriage becomes obsessed with the fate of a child whose family was arrested, along with thousands of others, during the Vel’ d’Hiv roundup of 1942. What the journalist doesn’t realize is […]
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