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Battle: Los Angeles

A new review from Nick at Nite

Battle: Los Angeles

It has been years since I went to a movie on opening night. My life has conspired to keep me away from the theater. So it was a little miracle that I was able to go on opening night to see Battle: Los Angeles. I was only a little disappointed. Likely because I was looking forward to it a little too much. This is a fine popcorn film. It is not too original. It is not particularly clever. It is a little clichéd. It is fun. Stuff blows up. A city is destroyed. The good guys win. Basically, a bunch of mean, nasty, water-based aliens start attacking us (see Independence Day, SkyLine, E.T., Bees, etc …) and a group of hardened U.S. Marines must come to our rescue (Aliens, Predator, Heartbreak Ridge, Wall Street, etc …). Do not get too attached to any character. Do buy popcorn. Do feel a little nauseated by the herky, jerky camera work (Cloverfield).

I give it an “A.”

Lord of the Dance in 3D

New review from The Movie Snob

Lord of the Dance in 3D (B). Okay, I've been a big fan of Irish music and dance since visiting the Emerald Isle a few years ago, but this show is just a bit over the top. As everyone knows, it stars a hammy fellow named Michael Flatley, and he apparently was the guy who had the inspiration to make a rock-n-roll stage show out traditional Irish music and dance some 15 years ago or so. This "concert film" of his show Lord of the Dance is actually a composite film shot during four different shows, but apparently most of the footage came from a show in Dublin. Anyhoo, the music and the dance are fun, and there's no question Flatley can still dance even though he's over 50. But "cheesy" doesn't begin to describe this show. There's a goofy gal in a jester outfit who shows up from time to time, mugging for the camera and pretending to play a recorder. There's a plot of sorts about some evil dancers and some good ones (led by Flatley, of course). There's a wholesome blond woman and a seductive brunette, and a troop of women dancers behind them that sometimes do tap and sometimes do more ballet-type things. In the middle of a big tap routine by the ladies, they unexpectedly and distractingly rip off their dresses and finish the number in outfits more like you'd see on "Dancing with the Stars," i.e., barely anything there. The whole show seems more sexed-up and Vegas-cheesy than the live "Riverdance" show I saw a couple of months ago. But I can't deny, I still enjoyed it pretty well.

Paul

A new review from The Movie Snob

Paul (B). Setting aside the extensive foul language, this is an amiable buddy/road-trip/chase movie in which one of the parties being chased happens to be an alien named Paul. Two nerdy Brits (the guys from Shaun of the Dead) are vacationing in America, and after attending a comic-book convention in San Diego they set out in a huge rented RV to see the great UFO locations of the American West. Lo and behold, they encounter an actual alien in the desert, and although he looks pretty much like you'd expect if you've seen Close Encounters of the Third Kind, personality-wise he's a slacker type like the Seth Rogen character in Knocked Up. (He also happens to be voiced by Seth Rogen.) Government agents led by Jason Bateman (Hancock) are in hot pursuit, but the trio of fugitives has time to pick up a winsome fundamentalist Christian named Ruth (Kristen Wiig, Whip It) and an older woman named Tara (Blythe Danner, Gwyneth Paltrow's mom). I enjoyed it, but the movie unnecessarily dumps scorn on fundamentalist Christians, not just for being creationists but seemingly for believing in God at all.

Sanctum

A new review from Nick at Nite

Sanctum

The director of this movie was allowed to borrow the cameras used by James Cameron in Avatar, too bad it wasn't written by Cameron. It is not a terrible movie. It is just not original. The movie is a copy of Descent 1 and 2 and some other movie I cannot recall by name (no monster here). The cool thing about this movie is the use of 3D. I saw it because of it. Too many movies are coming out with 3D as an afterthought. 3D was the first thought on this movie.

Oddly, I say see it at the theater or skip it. The 3D experience is worth it. The 2D not so sure.

The Tourist

New review from The Movie Snob

The Tourist (C). I'd say my decision to wait for this movie to make it to the dollar cinema was a wise one. Angelina Jolie (Salt) plays Elise, a mysterious woman in Paris whose every move is being watched by an international team of police. She gets a mysterious message from a mysterious man, instructing her to take a train to Venice and pick out a stranger of the right height and build to make the police think the stranger is the mysterious, unseen man. The lucky stranger turns out to be Frank Tupelo (Johnny Depp, Corpse Bride), an unassuming math teacher from Wisconsin. She chats him up, he's enchanted, they reach Venice, and hijinks ensue because everyone thinks Frank is the mysterious Mr. X. It's a hair too serious and violent to be a feel-good Romancing the Stone kind of movie, but it's not serious enough to be a serious thriller. So it just kind of idles along without any real sense of urgency. But Venice is pretty, and if you like Jolie or Depp, that might be enough to carry the movie for you.

Local Hero

DVD review from The Movie Snob

Local Hero (B). I saw this whimsical little 1983 release many years ago, but I couldn't remember much about it. So I borrowed this copy from a friend and gave it a watch. I enjoyed it, but if you demand a lot of plot in your movies, you won't get much out of it. A Texas oil company is developing an oil field in the North Sea, and its research men have decided the best course is to set up a terminal and refinery in the north of Scotland. One bay is uniquely suited for the company's needs, so one of its top negotiators is dispatched to negotiate a price to buy out the entire village. But before he can leave, the company's eccentric CEO (played by Burt Lancaster, Atlantic City) also instructs him to watch the skies, especially in Virgo, apparently because he wants to be responsible for the discovery of a comet. That's the set-up; there's not much plot beyond the negotiator's trip to Scotland and his dealings with the locals. The movie's pace is leisurely; the pleasure is in the development of the various quirky characters, like the marine scientist named Marina who seems to be half mermaid, and the hearty Russian fisherman who drops into the movie about halfway through.

The Illusionist

From the desk of The Movie Snob

The Illusionist (B-). This French film is nominated for the Oscar for best animated film, so I decided I needed to see it. It didn't blow me away. There is very little dialogue, and what little there is is either in a foreign language (without subtitles) or so garbled you can barely understand it. But you can easily enough get the gist of it through the admittedly lovely visuals. The year is 1959, and the protagonist is an older gentleman who is a professional magician who travels about France and England giving live performances. He makes a trip to remote Scotland for a performance, and a young woman working in the bar there decides to travel to the big city of Edinburgh with him. He buys her some nice things--obviously the first she has ever owned--but he is not all that well off himself, and it is plain that old-school entertainers like him are on the verge of being supplanted by television and rock-n-roll. So the movie has a nicely elegiac tone, but not a lot really happens, and I just needed a little more meat on the bones.

From Prada to Nada

A new movie review from The Movie Snob

From Prada to Nada (C-). So, what possessed me to see this obscure movie with a lowly 39 rating on Metacritic.com? The fact that it's based on a Jane Austen novel, that's what. It's Sense and Sensibility, set in modern-day Los Angeles and done with a Hispanic flair. Unfortunately, the script and the acting just aren't very good. It's about two sisters, the studious law student Nora and her partying undergrad sister Mary. They live with their wealthy father in a mansion in Beverly Hills. But at the very beginning of the movie, their father dies, and it turns out he was secretly near bankruptcy, so the sisters have to move in with their aunt Aurelia in poor east L.A. In best Jane Austen fashion, they meet some hunky guys, and things kind of go from there. I didn't recognize any of the actors involved except Adriana Barraza (Babel) played the aunt, and as I say, the acting wasn't so hot. But the movie's heart was in the right place, and I can't deny that there was applause in the auditorium after it was over.

Vipers' Tangle (book review)

A book review from The Movie Snob

Vipers' Tangle, by Francois Mauriac (Loyola Classics 2005). Loyola Classics specializes in republishing classics of Catholic literature, such as this 1932 French novel. It is in the form of a journal by an older man named Louis. His health is declining, and he writes the journal as a sort of letter to his wife Isa. We soon learn that Louis is a bitter and unhappy man whose marriage was loveless almost from the start and who loathes his two children who survived into adulthood. Although exceedingly rich, he hates the thought of his wife and children inheriting his money. Generally atheistic in outlook, he is repulsed by the bourgeois and hypocritical Catholic piety of his family. And yet, for brief moments and on rare occasions, his dusty and miserly soul is dimly aware of the beauty of true Christianity. Can he escape the "vipers' tangle" of hatred that his heart has become? I thought this was a pretty good read, but I would have appreciated a more insightful critical introduction than the few pages supplied with this volume.

The King's Speech

A new review from The Movie Snob

The King's Speech (A-). So much ink has already been spilled about this mega-Academy-Award nominee that I need not say much except that I too really enjoyed it a lot. Colin Firth (The Last Legion) turns in a terrific performance as the stuttering Duke of York who unexpectedly becomes King of England when his older brother abdicates. (But if you want to see a really remarkable performance, get a copy of The Last Legion and watch Firth try to convincingly portray an ancient Roman soldier!) Geoffrey Rush (Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End) also turns in fine work as the unorthodox speech therapist Lionel Logue.

The Way Back

New movie review from The Movie Snob

The Way Back (B+). Australian director Peter Weir (Witness) brings us this ode to human endurance. It's based on a possibly true story (apparently there's some controversy about this) about a small band of people who escaped from a Siberian gulag during WWII and walked all the way to freedom in India. Jim Sturgess (The Other Boleyn Girl) plays the band's leader, a thoroughly decent young Polish fellow named Janusz whose wife was tortured by the Soviets until she accused her husband of being a spy. He is joined by several others--a hard-bitten American (Ed Harris, National Treasure: Book of Secrets), a Russian thief (Colin Farrell, Ondine), and a few more. Along the way they are joined by a Polish teenager who's also on the run, an orphaned girl named Irena (Saoirse Ronan, Atonement). I really enjoyed it, although it's certainly sad in parts. Ronan, whom I've liked ever since seeing her in City of Ember, is probably too pretty to be playing a supposedly starving orphan, but she certainly makes it believable that the men would adopt and protect her like a daughter. I think the film's definitely worth seeing.

The Privileges (book review)

Book review from The Movie Snob

The Privileges, by Jonathan Dee (2010). I enjoyed this recent novel, although the ending left me a little let down. It's about modern life, but a very narrow slice of it. The first chapter is about the wedding of Adam and Cynthia Morey, two people from ordinary backgrounds who are themselves not at all ordinary. Smart, charismatic, and well-educated, they are impatient to get on with their lives together. They are completely certain their lives will be amazing -- and they are. They have two kids, and Adam becomes a fabulously successful finance guy in NYC, and the novel just dips into various periods in their family's history from then on. An interesting and well-written look at how the elites or our elite live. But the characters (perhaps intentionally) are a little flat. Introspection is not the elder Moreys' strong suit, although that is not so true of their son. Worth a read.

Somewhere

New review from The Movie Snob

Somewhere (C). This new movie from director Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation) won a "Golden Lion" award at the Venice Film Festival, whatever that means. I thought it was a promising but ultimately disappointing little movie. Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff, World Trade Center) is a successful Hollywood actor, but he's existentially stuck. The fast sportscar, the booze, and the beautiful women don't fill the void any more. He's fond of his 11-year-old daughter Cleo (Elle Fanning, The Door in the Floor), but he just doesn't see her that much. Coppola just kind of follows Marco around and observes like the proverbial fly on the wall. She shows the emptiness of his life pretty effectively, as he lives at a hotel that is apparently a known hangout for Hollywood types. (Benicio del Toro (Traffic) randomly appears at the hotel, sharing an elevator with Marco.) But then some scenes never really seem to go anywhere -- a long scene of Cleo ice skating, for instance, or a short scene in which Marco's car breaks down. I wasn't satisfied with the ending, either. It's nice to see Ellie Kemper from TV's The Office in a movie, though.

Pride and Prejudice

DVD review from The Movie Snob

Pride and Prejudice (A-). This is the 2005 remake of the beloved Jane Austen novel, starring Keira Knightley (Never Let Me Go) as Elizabeth Bennet and Matthew Macfadyen (Robin Hood) as Mr. Darcy. Being a big Austen fan, I was predisposed to like it, and I still do. On watching the DVD, I was surprised to see Carey Mulligan (An Education, Never Let Me Go), whose career is quite hot at the moment, in the small role of Kitty Bennet. Apparently this was Mulligan's first movie. The movie also features Rosamund Pike (Die Another Day), who would also appear with Mulligan in An Education. Anyhoo, it's a lovely adaptation of a great story. The :behind the scenes" extras on the DVD are not particularly insightful, but they do give a few facts about Austen and make it clear that the cast of the movie really enjoyed working together.

The Bishop's Wife

DVD review from The Movie Snob

The Bishop's Wife (B). This black-and-white 1947 release stars Cary Grant (Bringing Up Baby) as Dudley, an angel wandering around a big city just before Christmas doing good deeds for people. He drops in on Bishop Henry Brougham (David Niven, Murder by Death) and his lovely wife Julia (Loretta Young, The Farmer's Daughter). You see, the good Bishop has been neglecting his marriage because he is so consumed with trying to raise funds to build a magnificent cathedral. So you expect Dudley to gently set the Bishop's priorities straight. The pleasant surprise is that Dudley is not your usual saccharine kind of angel; he's much more smug and self-satisfied with his little magic tricks. What's more, he seems to have an appreciation for the fair Julia that is more than strictly cherubic! I enjoyed it. This disc had virtually no extra features, but it did have the movie's trailer, which is one of the oddest I have ever seen.

Tangled

A new review from The Movie Snob

Tangled (B+). The latest animated Disney offering is a retelling of the story of Rapunzel, the girl who lives in the top of a tower and has such long hair that it reaches all the way down to the ground. In this iteration, her hair also has the magical power to heal wounds and confer eternal youth, which is why a nasty old crone named Gothel kidnaped her as a baby and has raised her to believe that the outside world is a dangerous place she should never venture into. On the eve of her 18th birthday, Rapunzel gets her first visitor ever, a dashing thief named Flynn Rider, and adventures ensue. Although I thought it dragged a little toward the end, I enjoyed it overall, and it features wholesome Disney themes like having self-confidence, following your dreams, and making sacrifices for others. The animation is gorgeous--I saw the 2D version, and I hear that the 3D version is not worth paying extra for. And although there are no talking animals, Rapunzel's pet chameleon Pascal is cute, and the horse Maximus steals every scene he's in. Featuring the vocal talents of Mandy Moore (American Dreamz), Zachary Levi (TV's Chuck), and many others.

Riverdance

From the desk of The Movie Snob

Riverdance. Apparently I'm one of the last people in America to see this production of Irish music and dance. My mom and I saw a matinee performance at Verizon Theater here in Grand Prairie, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. It's about a two-hour show (including the intermission), and it consists of a few sung musical numbers, a few instrumentals, and of course the famous Irish dancing itself. The songs were pretty, but not especially memorable; the instrumentals were more impressive, and of course the dancing was amazing. I guess the show as a whole is supposed to tell the tale of the Irish people, but it was pretty vague and abstract for the most part. Which was fine; you go to see some impressively thunderous and synchronous dancing, and the cast did not disappoint.

The Movie Snob's 2010 Year in Review!

Welcome to The Movie Snob's annual list of the best movies of the year. As usual, if I saw a movie in the theater in 2010, I may include it in this column even if it was technically a 2009 release. For the record, I saw 58 movies at the theater in 2010, and these are the ones you should try to see if you haven't seen them yet.

Movie of the Year. This was not a tough decision -- the year's highlight for me was The Social Network, the popular and critically acclaimed dramatization of the invention of Facebook. It's an engrossing story about how a bunch of greedy nerds built an empire -- and then sued the pants off each other. I just saw a news item that the Winklevoss twins are trying to undo their $65 million settlement because they think they're entitled to even more. Or maybe they're just trying to lay the groundwork for a sequel.

Runner Up. It didn't do so well at the box office, but I thought Never Let Me Go was an excellent adaption of a phenomenal book. I can't say much about the plot, but it's a sad tale set in a dystopian alternative reality. Thought-provoking without being (in my opinion) preachy. Put it in your Netflix queue. Wait -- read the book first. Then put it in your Netflix queue.

Best Action/Adventure Flick. Will I lose my license to critique if I pick the remake of Clash of the Titans? As a kid, I loved the original, and I enjoyed the remake enough to see it twice in the theater -- NOT the 3D version, which was brutally panned by the critics. It's just good, stupid fun with mythology. Oh, I should mention Inception, because it was a fun, roller-coaster ride of a movie, even though I didn't know what was going on half the time. And even though I'll look like an idiot for preferring Clash of the Titans. Alice in Wonderland was pretty good too, and Alice's duel with the Jabberwocky at the end was pretty action-y, so I'll mention it in this category too.

Best Animated Movie. Unlike 2009, 2010 featured a bumper crop in this category. I'd give top honors to Toy Story 3, which had more exciting action and adventure than anything in the preceding category. But the quirky Fantastic Mr. Fox was also excellent, if a little offbeat. I also liked The Princess and the Frog quite a bit. But in addition to those films, I'd also recommend Megamind, Despicable Me, and How to Train Your Dragon as being well worth your time.

Best Comedy. I'm always hard-pressed to label any comedy "good," much less recommend it as worth seeing. But I really, really liked a little-seen movie called City Island, starring Andy Garcia as an ordinary, blue-collar guy -- a prison guard no less -- who starts taking acting lessons on the sly. His wife thinks he's having an affair; his teenage kids are complete mysteries to him; and then he inexplicably volunteers to take an ex-convict into his home. The plot clicks along very nicely, and I just enjoyed the heck out of it. The few other comedies I saw were wretched and don't deserve a mention.

Best Documentary. I'll go with the Johnny Depp-narrated When You're Strange, which is about the short, strange career of the rock band The Doors. Nipping at its heels are the space documentary Hubble 3D (narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, I believe), and nature documentary Oceans (narrated by Pierce Brosnan).

Best Drama. Lots of strong contenders in this category this year. Maybe it's just because I saw it very recently, but I'll pick The Fighter, starring Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, and Amy Adams. It's just a solid boxing movie with an underdog hero you can't help rooting for. Too cliched for your taste? I understand. Turn the clock back and go with An Education, a dark tale about a bright but naive British girl on the verge of womanhood who gets seduced by a sleazy cad. Or stay closer to home with the even darker Winter's Bone, about a courageous teenage girl who has to stand up to her seriously dangerous, meth-cooking relatives in the Missouri Ozarks if she wants to save her family's farm. One last honorable mention: I really liked The Young Victoria. You don't have to be an Anglophile to empathize with a spirited young woman born into the straitjacket of royalty.

Best Foreign Film. I would like to pick The Concert, a moving melodrama about a blacklisted Soviet music conductor who schemes his way into a comeback concert. I really enjoyed it at the time. But it did resort to an unpleasant Jewish stereotype to get a cheap laugh once or twice, and I have a hard time recommending it unreservedly. I also really enjoyed Kisses, an Irish movie about a couple of poor kids with bad home situations who decide to empty their piggy banks and run away from home. Honorable mention to the Italian movie Mid-August Lunch, which is a short, sweet little movie about a basically decent guy who is strapped for cash and agrees to take in a few elderly women for the weekend while their own children go away on holiday.

Honorable Mentions. I've already mentioned most of the worthwhile films of the year as honorable mentions in the specific categories above, but I can rattle off a few more that are worth a look. Michael Douglas turns in a good performance in Solitary Man. He plays a shallow, Gordon Gekko-like character, but on a much smaller scale. I didn't see the Wall Street sequel, but this movie had to be much better than that. I liked The Kids Are All Right, about a very unusual family situation that develops when a couple of kids being raised by lesbians look for and find their sperm-donor father. Although it's not the action movie it was purported to be, I liked The American, starring George Clooney as a world-weary hit man. (Be warned, it's got some pretty graphic sex scenes in it.) Ben Affleck's latest movie, The Town, is an entertaining film about a gang of Boston bank robbers. And still in current release you can catch Natalie Portman as a ballerina who's not-so-slowly losing her marbles in Black Swan.

First Seen on Video This Year. Just one movie I simply must mention: The Big Lebowski. How did I miss seeing this movie? I found it completely ludicrous and utterly hilarious. OK, one more -- The King of Kong, about a nice guy who just wants to compete fair and square for the title of Donkey Kong champion of the universe. I defy you not to get hooked on this movie.

So that's my 2010 in a nutshell. Thanks for reading, and please post a comment!

The King's Speech

Movie Man Mike sends us this review

The King’s Speech. (A). Really solid film with terrific performances by Geoffrey Rush, Colin Firth, and Helena Bonham Carter—but then what would you expect from these actors? This film tells the story of the ascension of Prince Albert (Firth) to the English throne. In many respects, this story is about the relationship between Prince Albert and his speech therapist, Lionel Logue. Logue is a lowly commoner with no real credentials, except that his own success becomes his calling card. Prince Albert is royalty, but suffers from an embarrassing stutter, which threatens his ability to achieve greatness. When his brother (played by Guy Pierce) abdicates the throne so that he can marry Wallis Simpson, Prince Albert—now King George VI is put to the test as a public figure—particularly because it all comes on the eve of war with Nazi Germany. Logue is endearingly brilliant as he overcomes the prince’s own resistances and forges a friendship at the same time. This film is really worth seeing.

Morning Glory

The premiere review for new Movie Court member Dan in Reel Life

This just in: Stay away from Morning Glory. Seeking a respite from the chill of Winter’s Bone, and from the, well, grittiness of True Grit, my girlfriend and I sought shelter at the “dollar” theater ($2 on Saturday nights) for what we hoped would be fun, light-hearted fare. We left the theater laughing alright, but not for the reasons the film intended. The ridiculous premises and clichéd dialogue left us second-guessing ourselves for not walking out halfway through.

The film chronicles the efforts of its heroine, Becky Fuller (Rachel McAdams, The Family Stone) in turning around a struggling morning network TV show. In the process she battles an executive (Jeff Goldblum, The Lost World: Jurassic Park) who clearly expects her to fail and yet harasses her for her poor performance, a preexisting unmanageable anchor she promptly fires, a mother who abdicates her parental duty to support her daughter with absurd one-dimensional cruelty (“your (deceased) father was wrong to encourage your dreams” she tells Becky), and an incompetent yet quirky staff accustomed to failure. But her biggest hurdle and the crux of the film’s tension is gaining the cooperation of the legendary but disgraced anchor Mike Pomeroy (Harrison Ford, Hollywood Homicide). Becky has forced him out of retirement due to an obscure clause in his contract that will deny him severance if he refuses the job. Ironically it would seem the producers of this film coerced Ford to take the part in this stinker by some similar ruse.

It’s tough to fault the actors for the mess that is this film because the screenplay could have been written by Michael Scott. Also, Diane Keaton (The Family Stone) was in the movie. The less said about this, the better.

Grade: D-

True Grit

A new review from Movie Man Mike

True Grit (A-). I'll resist the urge to compare this film to the original starring John Wayne--mainly because it's been too long since I saw the original version. I confess, however, that I was prepared to boycott this film because it seems wrong to push John Wayne deeper into the shadows by making another movie from the book. But when I saw the cast and directors, I couldn't resist the lure to see it.

This 2010 film is very entertaining. A big part of what makes this movie so good is the witty dialogue. One of my favorite lines is delivered by spitfire Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) to Texas Ranger LeBoeuf (Matt Damon) after Leboeuf stakes a claim to the outlaw Tom Cheney by telling Ross that he's been pursuing Cheney hither and yon for a very long time: "Why have you ineffectually been pursuing Cheney?" But even good dialogue needs the actors capable of delivering it, and this film obviously has that, with Jeff Bridges playing Rooster Cogburn, Damon as the boasting bounty hunter from Texas, and Josh Brolin as the outlaw Tom Cheney, who killed Ross's father. Relative newcomer Steinfeld rounds out the cast and proves that she's an equal to her co-stars. If there is one weakness in this film, it comes at the end when you see a grown-up version of Mattie Ross. The grown-up version doesn't really match what you'd expect Mattie to become as an adult. But this is a minor point.

I recommend seeing this film. You'll be glad you did. I was.

Rabbit Hole

Movie review from the desk of The Movie Snob

Rabbit Hole (B+). This movie is a portrait of grief. Nicole Kidman (Nine) and Aaron Eckhart (Love Happens) play a married couple, Becca and Howie, whose 4-year-old son was killed in an auto accident eight months before the movie begins. Although Howie seems to be functioning more or less normally, Becca is a total mess. She gets sick of the "God talk" at their grief-support group and quits. She complains that one of her friends had not spoken to her since the tragedy, but she's apt to go off on anyone who tries to speak a consoling word to her. That includes her mom (Dianne Wiest, Dan in Real Life), who compares Becca's son to her own deceased son Arthur once too often. It's no pick-me-up, but it's a well-made movie. Kidman got a Golden-Globe nomination for her performance, which had to be rough on her since she's a new mom herself.

Leave Her to Heaven

DVD review from The Movie Snob

Leave Her to Heaven (B-). Richard Harland (Cornel Wilde, It Had to Be You) is a successful author on a train to New Mexico. During the ride, he meets the beautiful Ellen Berent (Gene Tierney, Laura), and it turns out they're going to the same ranch. Although Ellen is already engaged, she quickly decides that Richard is her man and jilts her fiance (Vincent Price, The House of Wax). Richard, a rather passive fellow, lets Ellen sweep him off his feet, and they are soon wed. But Ellen has a hint of the crazy eye about her, and it turns out she is extremely possessive of Richard and wickedly resents anyone who tries to share their time--such as Richard's beloved and handicapped younger brother Danny (Darryl Hickman, The Tingler). Don't get in Ellen's way! The acting is perhaps not the greatest (although Tierney was Oscar-nominated for Best Actress), but I still enjoyed this movie well enough.

Atlantic City

DVD review from The Movie Snob

Atlantic City (B-). Although this 1980 release scored five Academy Award nominations, I found it a little dated and little cheesy; nevertheless, I still enjoyed it. Burt Lancaster (From Here To Eternity) stars as Lou, a sad, older fellow who used to run around with gangsters but now spends his time running numbers (what does that mean, exactly?), running errands for the obnoxious widow of another gangster, and spying on Sally (Susan Sarandon, Solitary Man), the attractive woman in the apartment next to his. (Although they're next-door neighbors, somehow they have facing windows he can spy on Sally through.) Sally's no-good husband (and her dippy sister, who's carrying hubby's baby) blows into town with some cocaine he stole from some mobsters in Philly, and he hits Lou up to help him fence the stuff. The mobsters don't take long to track the stolen goods to Atlantic City, and someone's bound to get hurt. As thrillers go, it ain't The Fugitive, but it's not a bad little movie. The DVD comes with virtually no extras, but I paid $3 for it at Big Lots!, so I guess I can't complain.

The Tourist

Nick at Nite goes sightseeing with The Tourist

The Tourist.

Sadly, this movie is not receiving a fair shake. Everyone wants to complain - Jolie and Depp have no chemistry, it is not an action film, it is not a romantic comedy, it doesn't know what it is - well those complainers should come down from their ivory towers and give this film a chance. The Tourist is not the best movie ever made, but it is entertaining and worth the price of the ticket to a first run feature. It reminds me of some of the better 70s or 80s thrillers (not meant to be ironic). Think Three Days of the Condor and Robert Redford. The movie has some action, a plot, some twists, a few laughs, and a ton of scenery to chew on. Jolie plays the girlfriend of a financial thief. Depp is the hapless tourist that is thrust in Jolie's intrigue. The co-star of this movie is Venice. Wow, I want to go there. I give this move an "A." Ignore the other reviews. Go see it.

The Fighter

New review from The Movie Snob

The Fighter (B+). Mark Wahlberg (Planet of the Apes) stars in this based-on-a-true-story movie about Mickey Ward, a boxer from the blue-collar Boston suburb of Lowell, Mass. Ward has grown up in the shadow of his older brother, Dickey (Christian Bale, Reign of Fire), who never fulfilled his potential as a boxer and has now descended into crack addiction. Worse, Dickey and the boys' mother Alice (Melissa Leo, Everybody's Fine) are terrible managers for Mickey and get him into fights he can't possibly win. But then Mickey starts dating a tough bargirl named Charlene (Amy Adams, redeeming herself from Leap Year) who teaches him to stand up for himself, and he has a shot at building a real boxing career. It's not the most original story, but the plot does throw a couple of minor curveballs to keep it interesting. And the acting is fine all the way around, especially Bale as the drug-addled and semi-crazy Dickey.

Black Swan

From the desk of The Movie Snob

Black Swan (B). I wasn't as bowled over by this movie as Movie Man Mike was, but it's definitely worth seeing if you're into freaky, psychological shenanigans. Natalie Portman (The Other Boleyn Girl) stars as Nina, a ballerina on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Her smothering mother (Barbara Hershey, Hannah and Her Sisters) and mean director (Vincent Cassel, Birthday Girl) don't help matters any, but you get the feeling that most of Nina's demons are the result of her own desperate quest for perfection. It's not a horror movie, but there are a couple of startling moments. It's worth seeing, and Portman gives a gutsy performance.

Sense and Sensibility (book review)

A book review from The Movie Snob

Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen. I saw the movie version starring Emma Thompson (Dead Again) many years ago and loved it, but I've never seen it again, and I had never read the book either. It was Austen's first published novel, and it is not on the same level as some of her others, but it is still an enjoyable read. It's about two teenaged sisters, Elinor and Marianne, whose father dies and leaves their financial prospects rather uncertain. Elinor is intelligent, practical, and grounded, while Marianne is romantic and impetuous. This being Austen, of course both sisters fall in love, and the twin love stories drive the plot. Willoughby, the dashing young man of uncertain character who sweeps Marianne off her feet, is certainly one of the Austen's most lively and vivid creations. I definitely want to watch the movie again after reading the book (even though, as a friend recently remarked to me, Emma Thompson had to be at least 20 years too old to play Elinor).

Peyton Place

DVD review from The Movie Snob

Peyton Place (C+). This 1957 production scooped up nine Academy Award nominations without a win. Although melodramatic and soapy by today's standards, I thought it was still a decently entertaining (if long, at 156 minutes) experience. It's 1941, and Peyton Place is a lovely, quiet New England town--on the surface. The film focuses on a handful of teenagers who are graduating from high school, and a handful of adults such as the school's new principal and the attractive widow who runs the town's dress shop (played by Lana Turner, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde). A major theme of the movie is the adults' concern and fear over their kids' growing curiosity about sex--they probably come across as puritanical prudes to modern generations, but there's no doubt they were prescient about what the future held. And considering that the movie was made in 1957, I thought it was a pretty forward-looking attempt to reckon with a range of difficult subjects, from sex education in the schools to domestic abuse and rape. Worth a look.

Pillow Talk

DVD review from The Movie Snob

Pillow Talk (F). Oh, my! This was my first Doris Day movie, and I was amazed at how bad it was. I thought it would be fluffy and corny, but I assumed it would still be a little bit entertaining. Not so much. Day (Lover Come Back) plays Jan Morrow, a happily single interior designer in NYC. Rock Hudson (Lover Come Back) plays Brad Allen, a womanizing songwriter who happens to share a party line with Morrow. (Back in the old days, if you can believe it, people sometimes had to share their home telephone lines with complete strangers. This was called a "party line," although it seems like it wouldn't be much of a party to share the line with someone who monopolized it all the time.) Anyhoo, Morrow and Allen argue a lot over his excessive telephone use, but then he comes to see her in real life. She's a cute blond, so he adopts a false identity and sets out to woo her. Tony Randall (Lover Come Back) plays Jonathan Forbes, Allen's chum and competitor for Morrow's affections. The movie is completely lacking in wit, and the few songs showcased in the film are terrible. Don't waste your time on this dog!

Great Books (book review)

A book review from The Movie Snob

Great Books: My Adventures with Homer, Rousseau, Woolf and other Indestructible Writers of the Western World, by David Denby (2d ed. 2005). Denby, a movie critic for upscale Northeastern magazines, went to Columbia University back in the early 1960s. Columbia, then as now, had a core curriculum that required all students to read the great books of Western civilization from Homer on down. In 1991, he went back and took (or I guess audited) the two basic Western civ classes again, and then he wrote this book about the experience. I enjoyed the book, probably because I had to read many of the same books during my own college experience, and because Denby is an engaging writer. A pretty liberal guy himself, Denby casts stones both at the radicals who want to abolish the idea of "great books" entirely and the conservatives who want to teach those books as establishing in stone a single set of moral ideals. And it's amusing to read him argue with each of the great authors in turn -- there's hardly a one Denby doesn't get the better of by the end of the chapter. And although Denby seems to want to appreciate the great books for teaching us to widen our perspective and to refrain from demonizing those who disagree with us, there are a couple of short startling passages where he demonizes away at the heartless right-wingers out there. But I enjoyed it, on the whole.

Black Swan

New review from Movie Man Mike

Black Swan. A. Visually haunting and amazing. The images in this film stayed with me for days and visited me in my dreams. This film has been nominated for 4 Golden Globe awards and it is receiving some early Oscar buzz—and rightly so. Natalie Portman plays Nina Sayers, a devoted, aspiring ballerina, who lives under the shadow of a controlling, suffocating mother, played by Barbara Hershey. Nina finally gets her chance to prove herself as the Swan Queen in Swan Lake when Beth MacIntyre (Winona Ryder) is put out to pasture. But director, Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel) has doubts as to whether Nina has it in her to also be the black swan-a darker, more sexual character. The pressure of it all pushes Nina into unexplored territory physically and mentally. The entire cast of this film is brilliant, including free-spirit Lily (Mila Kunis), who pushes Lily to the brink. At the end, you’ll ask yourself, where reality begins and ends. You gotta see this one. It’s good. My one criticism of this film are the little gasps of fear that come out of Portman during some of the dance scenes. It’s a bit annoying and probably not needed to express the emotion of the character.

Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

From the desk of The Movie Snob

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (C+). Bear in mind that I have never read the Narnia books, so I can't comment on the movie's (un)faithfulness to the source material. I approached it hoping merely for a decent fantasy-action movie, with perhaps some Christian undertones. Well, the Christian undertones were pretty minimal, as far as I could tell, and as a fantasy-action movie it was pretty mediocre. The two younger children from the first two movies are transported back to Narnia along with their pain-in-the-neck cousin Eustace. There they join the crew of the Dawn Treader, a ship commanded by Prince Caspian from the last movie. The Treader is on a quest of some sort, but I was a little hazy on what prompted the voyage. Anyway, they get direction soon enough, with the ultimate goal being an evil island somewhere out off the edge of their map. So they go island-hopping and have adventures on the way. It was a decent-enough flick, but it's doesn't remotely compete with The Lord of the Rings trilogy in quality. It's rated PG for fantasy violence, and the climactic battle with a sea serpent would probably be too intense for the little 'uns.

Love and Other Drugs

New review from The Movie Snob

Love and Other Drugs (D). This movie just isn't very good. Maggie Murdoch (Anne Hathaway, Get Smart) is an attractive but bitter young woman suffering from stage one Parkinson's disease. Her path crosses that of Jamie Randall (Jake Gyllenhaal, The Good Girl), a soulless pharmaceutical sales rep whose only hobby is having lots of meaningless sex. Since Maggie has closed the door on love and is ready to self-medicate her despair with meaningless sex, it is truly a match made in hell. Let's don't forget all the other loathsome people in this movie, like Jamie's pathetic younger brother, a Jack-Black-lookalike who sleeps on Jamie's couch despite being a multimillionaire (yeah, right), and a doctor played by Hank Azaria (Godzilla) who is, apparently, obsessed with having meaningless sex. The movie is padded out with scenes about the pharmaceutical industry and the shocking secret that pharma companies are out to make lots of money. But the main plot is the unpleasant and unconvincing romance betwen Maggie and Jamie. There's lots of gratuitous nudity. Skip it.

The Town

New review from The Movie Snob

The Town (B). The critics have really liked the latest directorial effort from Ben Affleck (Gone Baby Gone), and I have to say I liked it too. Affleck stars as Doug McCray, the leader of a small band of bank robbers from the Charlestown neighborhood of Boston. Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker) costars as McCray's trigger-happy right-hand man, James Coughlin. In the opening bank robbery (in which the gang is heavily disguised), Coughlin takes a bank manager named Claire Keesey (Rebecca Hall, Vicky Cristina Barcelona) hostage. Although the gang later lets her go unharmed, Keesey also turns out to be from Charlestown, and Coughlin is concerned that she might be able to I.D. them later. McCray refuses to let Coughlin off her, and he contrives to meet her so he can try to find out if she saw anything that could identify the robbers. She's a sweetie, and soon enough McCray is hooked. Meanwhile, hard-as-nails FBI man Adam Frawley (Jon Hamm, TV's Mad Men) is tightening the net around the gang. Although the movie is not quite believable in spots, I still thought it was a good heist movie, with some better than average car chases, shootouts, and the like.

The Walking Dead (TV Series)

New review from zombiemaster Nick at Nite

The Walking Dead

The problem with a television show is that it is hard to sustain momentum. Unless each and every episode can stand alone – Law & Order, MacGyver, Jersey Shore – your show must convince the viewer to return week after week (or at least to hit the record season button on their DVR). The Walking Dead succeeds where The Event, Flashforward, and Silver Spoons have failed. I confess. I love Zombie movies. Like teenagers to Twilight, I dart from one Zombie movie to the next with bated breath. The Walking Dead gets it right. Compelling stories, scary Zombies, creepy scenery, and a more than passable cast. This a longer, chewier 28 Days Later. In fact, when I watched the premiere I had the impression that it was just a rip off of 28 Days Later. Seriously, a guy wakes up in a hospital and the world is overrun by Zombies? I was mistaken. It is an original story and any similarities are only minor. The Walking Dead is based on a comic book series that was developed independently from 28 Days Later. My only disappointment is that the season is already over. Here is the good news. The complete season is already available for sale at Amazon. If you did not see it, go buy it. I give the series an A+.

Godzilla (1998)

DVD review from The Movie Snob

Godzilla (1998) (F). I won't even try to explain how I came to watch this amazing facsimile of an actual movie. It is simply 2 hours and 20 minutes of terrible. How they got old pros like Jean Reno (Ronin), Harry Shearer (This Is Spinal Tap), and Hank Azaria (The Simpsons Movie) to appear in this stinkbomb is beyond me. Matthew Broderick (You Can Count on Me) stars as a dweeby scientist who has to help the military stop Godzilla from destroying New York, while simultaneously trying to reconnect with the woman who broke his heart eight years earlier. No sci-fi/action movie cliche goes unused, and I never once came close to the edge of my seat. A computer program could generate a better movie than this. Bottom line: I didn't care for it.

An Affair to Remember

DVD review from The Movie Snob

An Affair to Remember (C). I had never seen this classic film, which I believe was further immortalized in Sleepless in Seattle -- which I have also never seen. Anyhoo, you probably know all about this movie already. Cary Grant (Bringing Up Baby) plays international playboy Nickie Ferrante. Nickie is taking a cruise from Europe to New York, where he will give up his freedom by marrying a fabulously wealthy heiress. But he doesn't count on meeting feisty Terry McKay (Deborah Kerr, Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison), who is herself engaged to marry a wealthy businessman. Romance and (supposedly) comedy blossom on the ship, and the lovestruck couple agree to test their feelings by going their separate ways for six months, and then meeting atop the Empire State Building if they still feel the same way at that time. The second half of the movie is pure melodrama. Frankly, the movie just didn't do it for me. The comedy is lame, and there are some really painful musical numbers. But of course Cary Grant is a pleasure to watch, and Deborah Kerr is lovely. And I was surprised at one scene in which the two main characters are both revealed to be Catholic, in a nice and respectful way. So it's not a complete waste of time by any means.

The Living Sea

New review from The Movie Snob

The Living Sea (B-). Once again, Little Rock's IMAX theater puts itself on the cutting edge by showing a fresh documentary from . . . 1995. Narrated by Meryl Streep (It's Complicated), this is a pretty standard ocean-going documentary, placing a slight extra emphasis on the interconnectedness of all the oceans. There was some wasted time, as with extended footage of a bunch of surfers, but there were also some decent stretches, such as a look at a peculiar salt-water lake in the Pacific island nation of Palau. Considering the price tag was under $6 for the movie ticket, popcorn, and coke, I thought it was a pretty good deal.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I

From the desk of The Movie Snob

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I (D). I don't like the Harry Potter movies; so sue me. The one before this one had a few moments of humor that made it reasonably tolerable. Something about a love potion making the rounds at Hogwarts, I do believe. But this film indicates that the last one was an aberration. HPATDHPI is a determinedly grim and gray spectacle as Harry and his two chums Hermione and Ron have to go out into the big, wide world to try to defeat the evil Sauron, er, I mean Lord Voldemort. There's lots of running about, a few fight scenes that are cut so rapidly you have no idea what is happening, and a couple of brief but unpleasant torture scenes. It's rated PG-13 for a reason, people.

The Big Lebowski

DVD review from The Movie Snob

The Big Lebowski (A-). I am sorry I have missed out on the pleasure of this Coen brothers movie for so long. A plot summary can't begin to convey how bizarrely off the wall the film is. Jeff Bridges (Starman) is an amiable California slacker named Jeff Lebowski, known to his friends simply as The Dude. He likes to drink, smoke marijuana, and bowl with his buddies Walter (John Goodman, O Brother, Where Art Thou?) and Donnie (Steve Buscemi, The Island). But then a couple of thugs mistake him for a wealthy old man who happens to share his name, and then when the old Lebowski's trophy wife (Tara Reid, Josie and the Pussycats) gets kidnapped, he taps The Dude to be his ransom courier. Things quickly spiral out of The Dude's comprehension, much less his control. Julianne Moore (City of Men) is hilarious as the old man's avant-garde-artist daughter. A couple of dream sequences are way, way over the top. (How does one conceive of the image of Saddam Hussein getting your bowling shoes for you?) Oh, and Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers is in the movie, too. I laughed out loud several times, and I never stopped rooting for The Dude. If you like the Coen brothers' quirky sense of humor, this cross between Raising Arizona and What's Up, Doc? should hit your funny bone.

The Social Network

Movie review from The Movie Snob

The Social Network (A-). This movie's been out a while now, but I just now got around to seeing it. I don't know why it took me so long. I think I was concerned my expectations would be too high after seeing so many good reviews. Plus, I was annoyed to read that parts of the movie, which is about the invention of Facebook, were apparently just made up by the filmmakers. Nevertheless, I found the movie completely absorbing. Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg, Zombieland) is a Harvard freshman, a computer genius, and an utter misfit. His girlfriend dumps him in the first few minutes of the movie, and in a vengeful, drunken state, he concocts a website that will allow users to rate the attractiveness of the gals at Harvard. It quickly crashes the school's computer system. Then, it's on towards the behemoth we now know as Facebook. Zuckerberg got sued over Facebook in two different lawsuits, and much of the story is told through deposition scenes and flashbacks from those scenes. It all works, although Zuckerberg himself--so lacking in warmth and human understanding that he almost seems autistic--remains a mystery to the end. I'd be fascinated to know his side of the story.

Splice

Another new review from Nick at Nite

Splice.

Rented this from the ATT on-demand service. I wish I could demand that ATT give me back two hours of my life. I think I was supposed to be horrified about the merger of human and animal DNA in this creepy little film. I was horrified by it when I saw it in The Fly and The Fly II. Adrien Brody (wasn't he supposed to be a good actor?) and Sarah Polley (ahh, Zombies) head up this film and the science lab. Obviously, their science experiment goes too far (it grows, is smart, has wings, a wicked tail, and wants to reproduce). This movie specializes in the lowest common denominator -- what would it be like if a human and animal hybrid had sex with a guy, and then what would it be like if the human and animal hybrid changed sexes and then raped a woman. Wow. What a bad idea. I am sad to do it, but I give it an "F."

Red

New review from Nick at Nite

Red

True Lies for the year 2010. Perhaps the praise is too high, but this movie reminds me of True Lies – action packed, some humor, impossible stunts, and an original take on a rehashed story. A group of older spies must come out of retirement to stop the folks that are trying to kill them one by one. Mayhem ensues as the older spies prove they still know a thing or two about a thing or two. I give it a “B.”

Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (book review)

Book review from The Movie Snob

Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years, by Diarmaid MacCulloch (Viking Penguin 2010). What can I say about this massive tome? It is 1,016 pages of text, excluding endnotes and bibliography. I read it because (1) I remembered thinking that MacCulloch's slightly smaller 2003 book The Reformation: A History was pretty good (without really remembering the book itself), and (2) I'm a committed Christian who would like to understand the history of the faith a lot, or at least a little, better. Although MacCulloch is an engaging writer, and I suppose he knows his stuff, I'm not sure that my reading his new book has improved my understanding at all. The history is so vast and sprawling, I could absorb virtually none of it. For example, the author's attention to the development of Christianity in the eastern Orthodox churches and other places outside of Europe and North America is commendable, but there is no way I'm going to remember any of the stories he tells about that development or the people and personalities involved. Maybe other members of the reading public will get more out of this book than I did. For me, sad to say, reading this book was pretty much a waste of time. Perhaps it will come in handy as a reference book.

In case you're curious, MacCulloch himself is a former believer; in the introduction he says he is still "a candid friend of Christianity." He goes on to say, "I still appreciate the seriousness which a religious mentality brings to the mystery and misery of human existence, and I appreciate the solemnity of religious liturgy as a way of confronting these problems. I live with the puzzle of wondering how something so apparently crazy can be so captivating to millions of other members of my species." Considering that introduction, MacCulloch is perhaps surprisingly respectful of the faith, but every now and then he seems to get a kick out of describing the tight spots and apparent contradictions that Christianity has occasionally found itself in. So if you're looking for a purely friendly history of Christianity, this is probably not the one for you. Caveat emptor!

Monsters

From the desk of The Movie Snob

Monsters (C). This independent sci-fi movie almost escaped my notice, but I saw a capsule review of it in the Dallas Morning News and figured I should see it before it flitted back out of the theaters. The set-up sounded promising in a District 9 sort of way: After a NASA space probe burns up over Mexico, alien life forms infest the whole northern part of that country, and both Mexico and the United States build giant walls to quarantine the dangerous, giant-squid-like aliens that eventually appear there. A grungy magazine photographer working in uninfested central Mexico finds that the magazine owner's daughter is stranded in the same area, and he is ordered to get her safely back to the USA. When they miss the last boat leaving for the United States, she illogically decides that instead of waiting for things to settle down, she will use her engagement ring to pay smugglers to take her north through the infested zone by riverboat and SUV. The photographer goes along. Although the alien special effects aren't great, they are adequate, and it could have been a decent alien movie. Unfortunately the film makers also go for a kind of It Happened One Night feel as the grungy photographer and the pampered rich girl supposedly develop some emotional connection. The romance is not very well done, and the movie ends up a pretty mediocre affair.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

New from The Movie Snob

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (C+). I'm unfamiliar with the "graphic novel" that this movie is based on, but the previews kind of intrigued me. Michael Cera (Juno) stars as the title character, the 22-year-old bass player in a loud garage band. He's still sort of nursing a broken heart from a painful break-up, and he's taking a lot of crap for sort of dating a high school girl. But none of this matters when he meets new-girl-in-Toronto Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Sky High). It's love at first sight, but complications immediately ensue beyond the obvious fact that he's already dating someone. Turns out that if Scott wants to date Ramona, he has to defeat her seven evil ex-es in giddy, video-game-style combat. There are quite a few witty one-liners, but the concept gets a little tired as the movie wears on. And the polymorphous sexuality that is continually discussed, if not displayed, amply earns the film's PG-13 rating.

Megamind in 3D

New review from The Movie Snob

Megamind in 3D (B+). First of all, I say you don't need to pay the 3D surcharge. The 3D effects are fine, but they added virtually nothing to this enjoyable animated feature. In an amusing twist on the Superman story, two alien babies are shot to Earth from a doomed solar system at the same time. The normal-looking one catches all the breaks and becomes a Superman-like superhero named Metro Man (Brad Pitt, Troy). The blue one with a freakishly large cranium becomes Metro Man's nemesis, supervillain Megamind (Will Farrell, Stranger Than Fiction). Caught between them is savvy, saucy reporter Roxanne Ritchi (Tina Fey, Baby Mama). But what would happen if Megamind unexpectedly won one of his epic battles with Metro Man? I thought this was a consistently amusing flick that tweaks lots of superhero conventions. Plus it was great to hear the voice of David Cross (TV's Arrested Development) as Megamind's minion -- an alien fish named Minion.

The King of Kong

DVD review from The Movie Snob

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (B). I heard good things about this 2007 documentary but missed it in the theaters. The bargain bin at Big Lots! gave me a shot at redemption (for the low, low price of $3!). Anyhoo, this movie is about a little-known subculture of nerds who are obsessed with playing old-school video games like Pac-Man, Centipede, Defender, and Donkey Kong. Apparently one of these fellows (and they're all men) named Billy Mitchell set a record score in Donkey Kong back in 1982 and it held up for some 25 years. But then an unemployed fellow named Steve Wiebe got interested in the game, studied it to death, and became a contender to take away Mitchell's title. Because Wiebe was an outsider, the gaming community kind of circled the wagons in favor of Mitchell, and the lines were drawn. Considering how low (negligible) the stakes were, this movie manages to build a lot of dramatic tension, and Wiebe and Mitchell become pretty compelling as the hero and the villain. Well worth seeing.

Control

New review from Nick at Nite

Control

Suicide is not painless. It is final. It is tragic. It is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. This biopic is a cautionary tale of talent, success, adultery, and depression. It follows the late, great Ian Curtis and his cutting edge, post-punk band, Joy Division from their start to their too soon demise. In short, Ian, the lead singer for Joy Division, struggles with his marriage to his childhood sweetheart and falls another woman while his band is touring Europe. During the tour he suffers several seizures during concerts. He is depressed over his medical condition and his affair. Just before the band is set to leave for its first American tour – he takes his life. The movie is shot in black and white. It feels like the late 70s or early 80s. It is grimy – just like England was during that time period. The movie shows why … “Love will tear us apart.” I give it an “A.”

Never Let Me Go

Movie Review from The Movie Snob

Never Let Me Go (A-). I absolutely loved the 2005 novel of the same name on which this movie was based, so my grade may be a little inflated. But I don't really think so; it is a moving story and the performances are very good. In the opening scene, Kathy H. (Carey Mulligan, An Education) stands in a hospital corridor watching the preparations for an operation. The rest of the movie is her extended flashback, going all the way back to her childhood at a British boarding school called Hailsham. If you've read the book--and I urge you to read it before seeing the movie if you can--then of course you know what is going on at Hailsham, and why it is just a little bit creepy. But before too long, one of the teachers at Hailsham (played by Sally Hawkins, Happy Go Lucky) breaches protocol and bluntly tells the children the shocking truth. Then the children grow up, Kathy H. and her best friends Ruth (Keira Knightley, Atonement) and Tommy (Andrew Garfield, The Social Network). It is a story of love, betrayal,and loss. Judging from the sniffling in the theater, I'd say that mine were not only the only damp eyes in the house. Go see it!

Easy A

From the desk of The Movie Snob

Easy A (D). I thought this movie had possibilities. First, it stars Emma Stone, who was likable in The House Bunny and Zombieland. Second, the trailers made it seem like an update of a literary classic (The Scarlet Letter), like Clueless was for Emma. Plus, it has a good supporting cast, including Amanda Bynes (Hairspray), Patricia Clarkson (Cairo Time), and Stanley Tucci (Julie & Julia). But it just wasn't very good. The idea is that Stone is a bright but anonymous high-school student in small-town California. She lies to her best friend about having a date with a college guy, and then she lies more and says that she slept with him. A brainless Christian fundamentalist (played by a strangely puffy-looking Bynes) overhears the lie, and Stone is instantly branded a floozy. Eventually she plays up to her new role, scarlet A on her tarted-up clothes and all. It's not very funny or otherwise entertaining, and it left me feeling vaguely annoyed. Skip it.

Letters to Juliet

DVD review from The Movie Snob

Letters to Juliet (C-). OK, I was supposed to pick up something from a Redbox that I thought The Borg Queen would like, so my options were severely limited. As it turned out, we wound up watching DVDs of "The Office" instead. But I decided to go ahead and watch this subpar romance before I returned to the Redbox. The movie is based on an interesting factoid: there is a little courtyard in Verona that is said to be the courtyard of Juliet (of Romeo & Juliet fame), and lots of lovelorn people apparently write letters to Juliet seeking advice. They leave the letters there, and a band of local people actually read the letters and write them back, signing themselves "secretaries of Juliet." (All this is covered in an extra on the DVD.) I thought that was kind of interesting, especially since I've actually been to that courtyard. So anyhoo, an engaged couple from America go vacationing in Verona, only the guy is so caught up in interviewing suppliers for a restaurant he wants to open in New York that the girl has to entertain herself. She finds out about this secretaries-of-Juliet business, and then she just happens to find a letter in the courtyard that is fifty years old. (Those careless Italians!) And when she writes the letter-writer back, the letter-writer (an elderly British woman) actually shows up in Verona, escorted by her very eligible grandson Charlie (who looks a lot like Ryan Philippe, Crash). The girl and two Brits set off across Tuscany looking for the Italian beau that the British lady jilted 50 years earlier, and it unspools predictably, though not believably, from there. Worth skipping.

The American

From the desk of The Movie Snob

The American (B). Be warned: this is a grim movie. George Clooney (Burn After Reading) stars as Jack, who is some sort of international criminal and probably an assassin. In the opening scene, something goes wrong for Jack in Sweden, and he hightails it to Italy where his truly evil-looking boss directs him to lie low in an little hill town and await further instructions. His next job comes soon enough; he is to custom-build a rifle and silencer capable of being quickly disassembled and hidden in a briefcase. In the meantime, he is befriended by the town's old Catholic priest and develops a more-than-professional relationship with a prostitute named Clara. But, given Jack's line of work, trouble is never far away. This is not a fast-paced action movie, as the movie posters might have misleadingly suggested, but more of a psychological portrait of a bad man whose wicked deeds have almost, but not quite, extinguished his humanity. The movie definitely held my attention, although it is certainly not flawless. Although the film is set in Europe, the Hollywood convention of portraying prostitutes as beautiful, disease-free women with hearts of gold is alive and well. And I am still befuddled by something that happens during the film's climax; the motivation for a critical act by one of the characters is totally opaque to me. But on the whole, I thought it was a good movie.

Postscript. Okay, having read some messages on the imdb.com board for this movie, I now understand the ending better. Things apparently didn't happen the way I thought they happened....

A Letter to Three Wives

DVD review from The Movie Snob

A Letter to Three Wives (B). This is a 1949 film that was written and directed by Joseph Mankiewicz of All About Eve fame. So you'd expect it to be well-written and have a lot of snappy dialogue, and, sure enough, it does. The set-up is this: in an unnamed small town, three female friends meet on a Saturday morning to help chaperone some underprivileged kids on a big boat-and-picnic outing. They are expecting to be joined by their friend Addie, but instead a letter is delivered to the on the pier just as they are departing, and in it Addie announces that she is skipping town that very day--with one of the three friends' husbands! The rest of the movie consist mostly of three flashbacks, as each of the three friends ponders a particular incident that might cause her husband to be the one. And then at the end, the truth is revealed. Although, truth be told, I thought the ending was just a tad bit ambiguous, and the comments on the movie at imdb.com tell me that I wasn't the only one!

I bought this movie as part of a 4-pack of "Studio Classics" from 20th Century Fox. (Isn't it remarkable how inexpensive DVDs have gotten?) The DVD for this movie also includes an episode of the TV series "Biography" about one of the stars of A Letter to Three Wives, Linda Darnell. It was pretty interesting too.

Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison

DVD review from The Movie Snob

Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (B). How in the world did I come to watch this 1957 film directed by John Huston (The African Queen)? Well, I'll tell you. I was flipping through an old book of Roger Ebert movie reviews, and I happened to read his review of Six Days, Seven Nights, starring Harrison Ford and Anne Heche as a mismatched couple stranded on a deserted South Pacific island. Ebert said that this old movie was a much better take on the same basic premise. So I looked it up. Robert Mitchum (Where Danger Lives) stars as Corporal Allison, a Marine who is washed up on a South Pacific island during WWII. He discovers that the only person there is an Irish nun, Sister Angela (Deborah Kerr, From Here to Eternity). When the Japanese show up, they have to hide out in a cave, and of course some romantic tension begins to build between the two. I would agree with my fellow film critic that this is a better film than Six Days, Seven Nights, but it is undermined a little bit by some unbelievable stunts that Corporal Allison pulls in the course of the movie. But it's definitely enjoyable and worth seeing.

Tom Petty (concert review)

From the desk of The Movie Snob

Two of my college buddies and I went out tonight and rocked out the way only three 40-something geezers can do.

1. Maple & Motor Burgers and Beer. We started out at this relatively new Dallas burger joint. The Dallas Morning News raved about it, and I like it fine but don't really quite see what the fuss is about. My buddies, Jim and Mark, had never been before, and they were favorably impressed by the burgers. And don't get me wrong, the food is fine. I just don't think it's the end-all of burgers. There were a couple of guys playing live music, and we enjoyed their rendition of "The Waiting." I wonder if they also went to the Tom Petty show....

2. ZZ Top. I was never a huge fan of this band, which played maybe 45 minutes or an hour as the opening act. And the first half of their set was older bluesy stuff I had never heard before, so it was kind of lost on me. Also, one of the two bearded frontmen told some long rambling story that I totally missed the point of. But I enjoyed it when they played their three hits from "Eliminator" back to back to back, and they wrapped up with "La Grange" and "Tush," which were fine. Not bad for an opening act.

3. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Now I saw these guys once before, I guess it was 10 years ago or more -- they had The Wallflowers as their opening act back then. And I have to say, I think that show was better, definitely more energetic. Tonight, Tom Petty and the band were so laid-back as to be positively languid. Maybe Petty's voice has gone downhill some, but he definitely wasn't as yowlly as some of his songs ("Refugee," for example) really call for. In fact, his vocals were occasionally kind of muffled and lost in the music. But I should hasten to add, it was still a pretty good 90-minute set. The crowd did quiet down when he did three or four in a row from the new album "Mojo," but he had plenty of audience enthusiasm for the rest of the set, which included "Free Fallin," "Listen to Her Heart," "Learning to Fly," "Breakdown," "Last Dance with Mary Jane," "Don't Come Around Here No More," and "I Won't Back Down." And there was noticeably more energy in the encore, which consisted of "Runnin' Down a Dream" and "American Girl."

500 Days of Summer

DVD review from Nick at Nite

500 Days of Summer

500 Days of I am a Little Sad and Bored. I really wanted to see this movie, so much so that I put it off for nearly a year. Reason. None. I think it was destiny. Like our protagonist, I was “destined” to see this movie – well after it had been released to the theaters, on DVD, pay per view, and your local cable provider. Here is my beef. I like quirky. I am even known to tolerate a romantic comedy. However, I am usually not too happy to invest an hour and a half in a movie that is not some sort of an escape. This movie was quirky. It was not romantic comedy. Perhaps it is the inner teen in me lashing out over failed relationships, but I really do not need to see another one on the screen. It is just too true. This is why I hated The War of the Roses and What About Bob? (I know What About Bob? is not a romantic comedy – it still makes me angry). If I want to see something serious, I’ll watch a biopic or catch shark week. If I want to watch people fall out of love, I’ll follow couples to the mall. It is faster and less painful. I give 500 Days a Summer a “B” for bummer.

Going the Distance

Capsule review from Nick at Nite

Going the Distance

My wife dragged me to this movie. I mean dragged. I thought it would be terrible. Seriously, the guy from the Mac commercial and Drew Barrymore. To my surprise, it was quite good. Crass enough to keep my interest. Romantic enough to appease the spouse.

I give it an A.

The Horseman on the Roof

DVD review from The Movie Snob

The Horseman on the Roof (C). This is French film from 1995 could have been called "Love in the Time of Cholera," but I think that title was already taken. The year is 1832, and a dashing young Italian patriot named Angelo (Olivier Martinez, Unfaithful) is on the run in France, fleeing the Austrian secret police. But the threat from the Austrians pales in comparison to the danger he runs into in the form of a vast cholera epidemic that is wiping out entire villages. The French army has been mobilized to try to quarantine the ravaged areas, which impedes Angelo as he tries to rendezvous with his Italian compatriots and then return to Italy. He is knocked off further off course when he befriends a French countess (Juliette Binoche, Dan in Real Life) who is trying to find her husband amidst the chaos. It's scenic and kind of old-fashioned--a decent movie, but not a great one, in my estimation.