Screen
A thriller minus the thrills
When Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson, Ciaran Hinds and this year’s breakout actress, Jessica Chastain of The Tree of Life and The Help, can’t make much out of a political thriller, you know something’s off with both the political and the thriller components...
Reel to Reel | Week of March 29, 2012
21 JUMP STREET See full review on page 47. Rated R. At Century, Colony Square and Twin Peaks. — Los Angeles Times/MCT ACT OF VALOR After the rescue of a kidnapped CIA operative leads to the discovery of a terrorist plot against the U.S., a team of Navy Seals is ...
Reel to reel | Week of April 5, 2012
10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU Inspired by the classic Shakespeare play The Taming of the Shrew, and as satirical as it is romantic, this is one teen film that is wide enough to span generations in its appeal. Rated PG-13 At International Film Series. — IFS 21 JUMP ...
Affleck actually delivers
The robbers work with a confident, brutal and bracing efficiency. And the same could be said of their director...
Bleak and white
Celebrated narcissist and Freddy Krueger look-a-like Frank Miller gives the women he writes a plethora of career choices. They can be prostitutes, strippers, bondage-wearing murderers or corpses. Some get to be all of those! Sin City: A Dame to Kill For is part ...
A film of great scowling
Actors learn only by doing, and by getting in over their heads. In the heyday of the Hollywood studio era, often they’d do this while wearing extremely heavy battle garb, surrounded by extras yelling “Aarrrrrghhhh!” as they run toward the enemy...
Serious as cancer
It´s a cancer film; no getting around it. But the tender and funny 50/50 addresses its protagonist’s health crisis and chances for survival directly, with a refreshing lack of narrative hemming, hawing or embroidery, so that it becomes something more: a picture with ...
I’m-a let you finish, but…
I love it when people argue about whether a certain year was “good” or “bad” for film. It is one of the sillier movie debates a person can have, ranking only behind “Best Adam Sandler Movie” and “Worst Moment in the Star Wars Prequels.” Every year is a good year ...
