There’s a telling movie to be made about the pharmaceutical drug trade in the U.S. (and elsewhere), but LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS isn’t it. This wouldn’t be a problem if LOVE wasn’t aspiring to be that movie, while simultaneously putting romance front and center.
THE NEXT THREE DAYS is an English-language remake, apparently quite faithful, of the French thriller POUR ELLE. In the new version, scripted and directed by Paul Haggis (CRASH), Russell Crowe plays a husband so devoted that, when it looks like his wife is going to spend the rest of her life in prison, he decides to break her out and flee the country, even though he has no previous criminal expertise whatsoever. This last is the most prominent of the several plot engines propelling THE NEXT THREE DAYS. Most movies about something as large-scale as a prison breakout have at […]Read On »
With all of the arguments today about labor unions, MADE IN DAGENHAM is certainly timely. The film, directed by Nigel Close and written by William Ivory, concerns the real strike that occurred in 1968 at the Ford auto factory in Dagenham, England, when a one-day walkout by the plant’s 187 female workers over their designation as “unskilled” workers (and the commensurate lower wages, vs. the 50,000 skilled males then employed there) turned into a full-on strike for equal pay for equal work. We can see the cause is just. Stitching car seats together is not something that can be done […]Read On »
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PT. 1 gets off to a bit of a wobbly start, as even those who are familiar with J.K. Rowling’s series of novels and the previous HARRY POTTER films (which is to say, the majority of the audience) may need a little while to remember just where we’re at in the story. Steve Kloves’ screenplay assumes we remember the salient facts from the last film, HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE, where the ailing Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) was killed by Dark Arts teacher Professor Snape (Alan Rickman), to the general horror […]Read On »
Although its creators have stated otherwise, SKYLINE feels like a movie where the plot was created to service the special effects rather than the other way around. This said, as apocalyptic alien invasion movies go, it’s got a lot of action and characters who behave mostly as we’d expect suburbanites would when confronted with a shocking, insoluble situation. SKYLINE begins with the alien attack – huge, organic-looking ships that hover and emit a bright light that sucks up anyone who ventures out to see what’s going on – then flashes back fifteen hours earlier to introduce the main characters. Jared […]Read On »
Rating: G Voices: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Ned Beatty, Joan Cusack, Don Rickles, Michael Keaton, John Ratzenberg Writers: Michael Arndt based on a story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton & Lee Unkrich Director: Lee Unkrich Distributor: Walt Disney Home Entertainment Suggested Retail Price: $45.99 Even when Pixar is producing sequels to their hit films, they manage to do things right. First, they had the unenviable task of following up their first full length feature TOY STORY with TOY STORY 2 and (surprise) exceeding all expectations. Now, 11 years after the second round-up, they’ve finally produced TOY STORY 3, which could […]Read On »
Rating: PG-13 Stars: Denzel Washington, Chris Pine, Rosario Dawson, Kevin Dunn, Kevin Chapman, Kevin Corrigan, Lew Temple, Ethan Suplee Writer: Mark Bomback Director: Tony Scott Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox Release Date: November 12th, 2010 UNSTOPPABLE is an apt name for this action thriller, which mimics the momentum of the title menace, a 39-car train carrying explosive, poisonous cargo that is accidentally set loose at speed upon the tracks. If this sounds like the plot of an average TV disaster movie, it is. However, this is an instance where it’s all in the details. Director Tony Scott and writer Mark Bomback […]Read On »
After the success of this summer’s super-villain animated feature DESPICABLE ME, it was a big question mark if the similarly themed DreamWorks animated comedy MEGAMIND was going to pale in comparison. Thankfully that’s not the case. MEGAMIND exists in its own animated universe spearheaded by hilarious and cheeky vocal work by Will Ferell and Tina Fey. They take the material and elevate it by transcending the animated universe by delivering a great overall movie that takes the superhero genre and spins it on its head.
Chances are, you’ve heard of Aron Ralston. He’s the outdoor enthusiast who got pinned by a boulder in a freak accident and, after five days, had to cut off his own arm to escape. For those who can cope with a depiction of Ralston’s ordeal, 127 HOURS is a consistently gripping drama that puts us face to face with the question of what we would or even could do to save ourselves in a similar situation.
Poor Shawn Cooper (Ryan Kwanten). He and his pregnant wife Alice (Claire van der Boom) arrive at the tiny Outback town of Red Hill, where Shawn has been transferred, per his request, to be a new deputy. Shawn walks into town from his new house to meet his fellow deputies – a mixed lot – and their boss, known as Old Bill (Steve Bisley), a cantankerous but effective lawman who seems to have seen it all. Then the radio reports that convicted murderer Jimmy Conway (Tommy Lewis) has escaped from prison. Tommy was a local man and Old Bill put him away. Now it looks like the extremely dangerous escapee is heading into Red Hill for revenge. Shawn winds up in situations he never imagined as things get more and more perilous.
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