(Andrew Schwartz/Columbia) “Who is Salt?” inquires the promotional push for the latest Angelina Jolie-starring spy thriller from Columbia Pictures. It’s a question we ponder often during the film, and one whose answer is well explored, unexpected, and not so simple, really. The story proper begins like a punch-line: so a guy walks into the Central […]
Movie Review: ‘Inception’
Inception (Warner Bros.) (Warner Bros./Stephen Vaughan) So here’s the problem with Inception. Molded from remarkable ambition and complexity, the film must spend a considerable amount of time introducing and explaining its significant set of rules and procedures. At the same time, Inception requires us to understand these rules—to grasp this intricate swirl of concepts—in order […]
Weekend Movie Review: Despicable Me, and Playing Catch-Up
Hello, good readers! You may have noticed I’ve been absent from these parts the past few weeks, so let’s get back up to speed with the movie world, shall we? First, a new release: the animated Despicable Me, from Universal Pictures. The year has featured a robust slate of block-busting animated fare—from Dreamworks’ lovely How […]
Weekend Movie Review: ‘The A-Team,’ ‘Mother and Child’
The A-Team (20th Century Fox) (Michael Muller/20th Century Fox) Whipped, nipped, and tucked into submission, The A-Team is an expensive-looking, high-gloss action bonanza, so calculative as to feel mechanical, and so unobtrusive or unchallenging in any way that it’s almost spooky. Four renegade army types team up for militaristic operations under the US Army’s banner […]
EXCLUSIVE: Interview with Rodrigo Garcia, writer and director of MD Film Festival closer ‘Mother and Child’
Movies of late have been… loud. From the bombastic rocket-launch of Iron Man 2, to the sting of swords and arrows in Robin Hood, to the kinetic furor of the latest Shrek installment. Then the sandy, shrieky inanity of the Sex and the City gals and a certain Prince of Persia, and just last weekend, […]
Movie Review: ‘Please Give’
Please Give (Sony Classics) There’s nothing so extraordinary about Please Give, the latest from female-centric filmmaker Nicole Holofcener, and that’s precisely the point. The film is a reflection of real women working through real issues in our real world—really. Holofcener crafts intensely believable characters in an atmosphere imbued with authenticity, and she does so with […]
Weekend Movie Review: ‘Sex and the City 2,’ ‘Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time’
Sex and the City 2 (New Line/Warner Bros.) I’m sorry. Am I missing something here? Are any of these women supposed to be remotely relatable? Are any of them supposed to be women at all? There’s Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), the whiny, self-absorbed, unbearably wistful alleged fashionista (a claim I more than once felt quick […]
‘Shrek’ Finale Lands Near the Middle
Shrek Forever After (Dreamworks/Paramount) What is this movie called exactly? Shrek Forever After? Shrek: The Final Chapter? Shrek in 3D? Shrek Trek IV: The Voyage Home? Technically, it’s the first of those listed, but glancing over the promotional materials for the film, and even sitting through both the opening and closing credits, you could still […]