MCN Originals Archive for September, 2011
Wilmington on DVDs. Picks of the Week: New. Bridesmaids, Le Quattro Volte
Bridesmaids (Three and a Half Stars) U.S.: Paul Feig, 2011 (Universal) Kristen Wiig is one funny lady, and Bridesmaids — in which she is both star and co-writer — is one funny movie. That’s hardly news. “Bridesmaids” is one of the best reviewed, best liked Hollywood comedies of the year. By current consensus, it’s…
Read the full article »Wilmington on Movies and DVD; Straw Dogs (Peckinpah and Lurie)
Film: Straw Dogs (Two Stars) U. S.: Rod Lurie, 2011 DVD: Straw Dogs (Blu-ray) (Three and a half Stars) U.S.: Sam Peckinpah, 1971 (MGM) I. Bloody Sam Straw Dogs, Rod Lurie‘s remake of Sam Peckinpah’s 1971 classic — with Dustin Hoffman as a Vietnam era intellectual forced to face the beast in himself and…
Read the full article »The Weekend Report, September 18, 2011
The Lion King, reconstituted for 3D, pawed its way to the top of the box office with an estimated $29.1 million. Three other films debuted nationally this weekend to generally disappointing results.
Read the full article »Wilmington on Movies: I Don’t Know How She Does It
U.S.: Douglas McGrath, 2010 (Two Stars) I Don’t Know How They Do It Summary You think you’ve got problems? Let me tell you, you don’t know what “problems” mean until you’ve had a peep at the Perils of Parker in the movie I Don’t Know How She Does It, Sarah Jessica’s…
Read the full article »Friday Estimates, September 16, 2011
Disney felt the love last night, as The Lion King returned with a strong opening day. The question amongst number crunchers will be whether this is being driven by the film’s first generation wanting to share the film with a new one or the 3D conversion. Also opening, 80’s retro Drive vs 70s retro Straw Dogs. And TWC will wonder why Sarah Jessica Parker didn’t do it.
Read the full article »Wilmington on Movies: Drive
Drive (Three and a Half Stars) U.S.: Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011 Drive is an L. A. action movie that can really tighten your throat and twist your guts. Story-wise, it’s lean, mean and stripped to the bone, but it’s also drenched with visual style. Directed by Nicolas Winding-Refn, the flashy Dane of The “Pusher”…
Read the full article » 4 Comments »TIFF ’11 Dispatch: So Long, and Thanks for All the Films
This was a pretty fantastic year to be at TIFF. I saw many solid films, a fair number of fair-to-middling films, only one film bad enough to warrant a rare walkout, and even a few that were great. The area around the Lightbox and Scotiabank felt like a real live festival center this year, complete…
Read the full article »Annnnd…. Scene!
It was the easiest, hardest, best, worst, perfectly imperfect TIFF ever… made more so by the fact that I am summing it up days before it even ends. Sony, first through Sony Classics and then through the only studio doing serious TIFF junketting this year, Columbia Pictures, dominated the festival in every way. Clooney and…
Read the full article » 27 Comments »The DVD Wrapup: Thor, Citizen Kane, Just Peck, Meek’s Cutoff, Leading Ladies, Bill Cunningham New York, Spartacus …
Thor: Blu-ray 3D Marvel Knights: Thor & Loki Blood Brothers You know things are bad on Earth, when superheroes from other universes are stripped of their powers and sent here as punishment, instead of refuge and a “chance for life,” as was Superman. Albania, maybe, but not the good ol’ U.S. of A. That’s exactly…
Read the full article » 17 Comments »Wilmington on DVDs. The Rest: X-Men The First Class, Thor, The Colossus of New York, Monkey Business
X-Men: The First Class (Also Blu) (Two Discs) (Two and a Half Stars) U.S.: Matthew Vaughn, 2011 Maybe I’m getting tired of super-heroes and super-heroines. Or maybe X-Men: First Class just has too many of them. In any case, the latest Marvel movie, by my reckoning, puts a first-rate cast into a third-rate story,…
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs. Co-Picks of the Week: New. Meek’s Cutoff, Secret Sunshine
Meek’s Cutoff (Three and a Half Stars) U.S.: Kelly Reichardt, 2011 Meek’s Cutoff, like the Coen Brothers’ True Grit, is an art film Western for a contemporary audience, and an unusually good one — made by a director and writer (Kelly Reichardt and Jonathan Raymond), who show a real feeling for what it must have been…
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs. Pick of the Week: Blu-ray. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
CO-PICK OF THE WEEK: BLU-RAY O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Four Stars) U.S.: Joel and Ethan Coen, 2000 (Touchstone/Disney) O Brother, Where Art Thou? — for whose title alone Joel and Ethan Coen deserve a medal — is an outrageously entertaining and inventive movie that still hasn’t gotten its due. The Coen…
Read the full article »Confessions of a Film Festival Junkie: Day 4
Glitch! Saturday morning’s early morning screening of The Descendents – Alexander Payne’s new film starring George Clooney – at the Toronto International Film Festival got into rather severe technical problems. Those of us standing in line were told at about 20 minute intervals that there was a problem but exactly what problem was kept vague….
Read the full article »TIFF Dispatch #2: Catching Up
It’s been a very busy few days for me here at TIFF, as I’ve been aiming for four-five films a day this year and trying not to be hunched over a keyboard in the 15-20 minutes I have between screenings. So here’s a nice catch-up for you of some of the films I’ve been enjoying…
Read the full article »Wilmington on Movies: Mozart’s Sister
(Three and a Half Stars) France: Rene Feret, 2010 Mozart’s Sister, a film often lovely to see and hear, by French writer-director Rene Feret, is the fictionalized semi-biographical tale of a remarkable girl, her extraordinary family and of the beautiful music they all made together. But it’s also a very sad story, as stories…
Read the full article »Digital Nation: ‘Rescue Me’ From Uninformed Punditry About Hollywood and 9/11 …
In the lead-up to 9/11/11, two unrelated events prompted me to add my thoughts to the national conversation about one of the most disturbing and unconscionable attacks on non-combatants in history. Like most Americans, I’ve been given no deeply personal cause to obsess over the attacks. Neither do I need repeated visual reminders of the…
Read the full article »Wilmington on Movies: Contagion
(Three and a Half Stars) U.S.: Steven Soderbergh, 2011 Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion begins with a cough in the dark — something mundane, and ordinary, if irritating and unhealthy, that soon grows into something else: an explosion of fear, death and hysteria. As the movie proper begins, a title soon informs us that it‘s Day…
Read the full article »Confessions of a Film Festival Junkie: Toronto 2011 – Day II
Historically the festival has an almost unerring capacity for choosing the wrong opening night picture. This year was no exception with its selection of the U2 profile From the Sky Down. More rumination than concert film, it focuses on the group’s preparation for the 2011 Glastonbury festival, one of England’s most beloved musical events. They decide to revisit their seminal album Achtung Baby, recorded 20 years earlier in Berlin.
Read the full article »TIFF ’11 Dispatch #1: Can You Say Party? I Knew You Could.
Another year, another Toronto International Film Festival. It doesn’t feel like a whole year since the last TIFF, but here we are, back in the land of ketchup chips and butter tarts, churning through four-five movies a day. The fest has a different feel to it this year, with most everything officially moved down to…
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs. Pick of the Week: Box Set. Genius of Britain, The Scientists Who Changed the World/Stephen Hawking and the Theory of Everything
Sir Isaac Newton Genius of Britain (Three Discs) (Three and a Half Stars) U.K.: Christopher Sykes, Michael Waterhouse & Jonathan Rudd (Series director)/Gary Johnstone, 2010/2007 (Athena/Acorn Media) Science was my weakest subject in high school. And since I didn’t much like what didn’t come easily to me, and really didn’t like passionless, styleless writing, and since most…
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