Review: Dope (USA: 2015): Finding One’s Voice on a Deadline

Posted on by
Dope (2014)

Dope (2014)

Rick Famuyiwa’s high school comedy about avoiding gang trouble while finding one’s voice hits its stride early and doesn’t let up until the final credits roll. Shameik Moore as Malcolm gives a performance strong enough to keep us concerned with his high school trials: can he get his Harvard entrance essay completed and unload a few kilos of molly he’s found in his backpack?

Rating
image

Continue reading →

Review: The A-List (USA: 2015): In the End, We Find Popularity Doesn’t Matter So Much (Shocker)

Posted on by
The A-List (USA: 2015)

kkadfkdfasdf The A-List (USA: 2015)

Sometimes we look through the overlooked movies and find hidden gems, but Will Bigham’s debut, The A-List, isn’t one of those. As a comedy about the downside to popularity in high-school, it is too predictable with too few memorable moments to recommend to any but the most die-hard fans of teen movies.

Rating:
image

Continue reading →

Web Junkie (USA/Israel: 2013): Social disease or phenomena

Posted on by
Web Junkie (2013)

Web Junkie (2013)

More thoughtful than I anticipated, Hilla Medalia and Shosh Shlam’s documentary takes us inside a gaming addiction treatment facility in China. While it never digs sufficiently into details to be an exposé of a potential sham, the human story is compelling enough to draw one in. The audience is left uncertain whether or not the boys and their families suffer from a real clinical addiction or from social overreaction to contemporary teenage behavior, but it is difficult not to feel a sense that something is wrong with a world that creates compelling virtual universes for people to escape into and then unfairly institutionalizes those who try to escape there too often.

Rating
image

Continue reading →

Cinderella (USA: 2015): In case you haven’t heard, the shoe fits and she marries well

Posted on by

cinderella-ball1

As a children’s film, Kenneth Branaugh’s live action Cinderella is probably worth a visit for the high production values, lush sets, gorgeous costumes, and magical CGI. For adults, however, the movie offers nothing more than Disney’s take on the story from 1950 with no noteworthy changes that might offer a new perspective on the same old story.

Rating
Children:
image

Adults
image

Continue reading →

Paddington (USA/UK: 2014): The polite bear won me over

Posted on by
Michael Bond's classic bear keeps his classic look.

Michael Bond’s classic bear keeps his classic look.

True to the storied bear’s origin, funny and cinematically sophisticated, Paul King’s Paddington is a children’s film that actually works. Great care obviously went into the production, with effects placed into a children’s live action film at levels of quality I have not seen since Hugo. What is “real” and what is the effects team’s imagination blend almost seamlessly.

image

Continue reading →

The Inverview (USA: 2014): It would have been worth the risk, if more risks were taken

Posted on by

The-Interview-e1418897550750

Brief Review

There should be a rich vein of comedy to mine in a send-up of American foreign policy hubris, press incompetence, manipulation and petty dictatorships, but The Interview fails to dig deep enough to make it sting and make us laugh. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg have all the ingredients of a farce, but rely on the well-worn stoner-womanizer personas of the leads too often to take the film into more interesting territory.

Rating

image

Continue reading →

Inherent Vice (USA: 2014): Strong style and mood cannot overcome a lost plot

Posted on by

inherentvicenewbannerlarge

Brief Review

If one could enjoy a movie for mood and setting alone, Inherent Vice may be the masterpiece of the year.  It is America of of 1970 that director P.T. Anderson is laying out, that time of hazy drugs and confused meanings when the entire country seemed to have completely lost the post-war plot. That the rootlessness of the times overwhelms the characters is understandable, but at 2 1/2 hours, viewers may become restless at the meandering developments that always seem to be leading somewhere, but which never reach any specific conclusion.

Rating

Continue reading →

The Usual Suspects (USA: 1995): A review at 20

Posted on by

The first in a periodic series of reviews of films celebrating milestones in 2015

Release Date: January 25, 1995

It is difficult to believe that The Usual Suspects is 20 already. Bryan Singer’s mid-1990s pulp about five criminals attempting a heist to save their lives seemed to be pointing the way toward a noir future when it was released. It seems like just yesterday we were talking about a twist ending that “we never saw coming.” Sure it wasn’t The Crying Game (1992) levels of twisted, but I think we were out of the practice of watching suspense tales unfold, so the question of “Who Is Keyser Soze?…If he even exists” was fresh for us without long film memories at the time.

Kevin Spacey won his first Oscar for his role in the film. Christopher McQuarrie also won an Oscar for original screenplay. Both screenwriter and director would pair up again several times in much bigger budget fare – most notably X-Men, Jack, the Giant Slayer, and Valkyrie. As far as independent movies go, it could be considered a success. Below are four questions to contemplate at 20:

Continue reading →