Columns By Gary DretzkaDretzka@moviecitynews.com
The DVD Wrapup: The Lincoln Lawyer, Rango, Arthur, Waking Madison, Damnation Alley, The Third Wave, Miral, Insidious …
The Lincoln Lawyer: Blu-ray The last time a movie was adapted from a crime novel by Michael Connelly, it left such a bad taste in the mouth of longtime fans they prayed he wouldn’t sell another of his books to Hollywood, especially those associated with LAPD detective Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch. Even with the estimable talents…
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs. Pick of the Week: New. Rango; Uncle Boonmee, Who Can Recall his Past Lives.
CO-PICK OF THE WEEK: NEW Rango (Three and a Half Stars) U.S.: Gore Verbinski, 2011 Rango is a fast, funny, gorgeous-looking cartoon feature by director Gore Verbinski that sends up movie westerns as they’ve rarely been sent up. In this puppet-ish spoof — in which Johnny Depp plays (or voices) a gabby chameleon masquerading as…
Read the full article »Wilmington on Movies: Horrible Bosses
Horrible Bosses (Two Stars) U.S.: Seth Gordon, 2011 There’s an ugly rumor going around that Horrible Bosses is a funny, clever movie. But if that’s true, I must have wandered into the wrong Multiplex theatre and seen some other horrible movie by mistake. Maybe it’s just me. One person‘s laugh riot can be another person’s snore….
Read the full article »Wilmington on Movies: Zookeeper
Zookeeper (Two Stars) U.S.: Frank Coraci, 2011 Zookeeper is a Kevin James comedy of almost stupefying dopiness; a movie that, at its worst, makes you feel (to succumb for a moment to Zookeeper’s own vice of ludicrous exaggeration), as if you were sinking slowly, slowly into a huge steaming vat of vanilla pudding, while…
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs: The Rest. Season of the Witch, Hobo With a Shotgun, The Fearmakers, Rope of Sand, The Cocoanuts
Season of the Witch (Two and a Half Stars) U.S., Dominic Sena, 2011 ( 20th Century Fox ) It’s good, or at least encouraging, to find a big movie super production that has at least a little literary-dramatic ambition — and the new Nicolas Cage show, Season of the Witch, certainly has some of that. Produced to a…
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs. Pick of the Week: Classic and Blu-ray. Three by Pixar: Ratatouille, WALL-E, Up
PICK OF THE WEEK: CLASSIC AND BLU-RAY Three from Pixar (Blu-ray) For the past few years, the jewels in the Disney Studio’s animated crown have usually been the Pixar movies: those wittily written, brilliantly characterized, wildly popular, critically hailed (well, as long as it’s not Cars 2) feature-length gems from Disney head John Lasseter’s brainchild…
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs. Pick of the Week: New. 13 Assassins
PICK OF THE WEEK: NEW “13 Assassins” (Three and a Half Stars) Japan: Takashi Miike, 2010 (Magnolia) 13 Assassins. The sons of the Seven Samurai? In an abandoned mountain village that they have turned into a huge, ingenious booby trap, 13 samurai, or free-lance fighters, assembled by an idealistic master warrior, await their enemy:…
Read the full article »DVD Wrapup: Of Gods and Men, Oblivion, Transformers Headmasters, People of Sunday, Trailers From Hell, BloodRayne …
Of Gods and Men: Blu-ray At a time when people who believe they’ve been washed in the blood of the lamb can manipulate the words of Jesus Christ to justify blowing up abortion clinics, sexually abusing children and protecting the predators, denying marriage to same-sex couples and harassing the families of soldiers killed in combat,…
Read the full article »Wilmington on Movies: The Makioka Sisters; Live Today, Die Tomorrow; Onibaba
The Makioka Sisters (Four Stars) Japan: Kon Ichikawa, 1983 Kon Ichikawa’s 1983 film of the famous ‘40s novel by Junichiro Tanizaki — with its subtle and exquisite dramatization of a crucial period in the lives of four beautiful, upper-class sisters living in Osaka — is one of the great Japanese films, and perhaps one…
Read the full article »Wilmington on Movies: Larry Crowne
“Larry Crowne” (Two and a Half Stars) U.S.: Tom Hanks, 2011 In Larry Crowne — a romantic comedy with Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts that should have been a timely, funny show, but isn’t — Hanks plays the title character, an up-from-working-class managerial guy suddenly cut adrift from his life, and forced to try to find…
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