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If you’re like me, then you probably just can’t stand the crap that passes for “entertainment for men.” You know, the kind of sappy, melodramatic junk that Lifetime for Men airs: movies about soccer dads in jeopardy, usually called things like Oh Dear God No Not My Baby!, horrible, trite stories about dads who triumph over a cold, harsh, unsympathetic world, and become better people and — more importantly — better dads in the process.
Need I say they fall in love? Within a matter of days? She should be worse, to his eyes, than the boorish women his uncle wants him to marry. He should be worse, to her eyes, than the unconventional Stuart she can’t abide. And abysmal lack of chemistry between Ryan and Jackman is embarrassing: they share the least romantic screen kiss I’ve ever seen. You can practically see them thinking, ‘Oh, well, it’s a paycheck.’
Robert Altman’s latest saga is a sprawling yet intimate upstairs/downstairs murder mystery set at a shooting party at an English manor in 1932, a story much concerned with subtle class warfare and how very nasty very proper people can be. But don’t see it for that. See it for the catty gossip, the cheap rich … more…
The dramatic, Ingrid Bergman close-up of Cate Blanchett’s exquisite face that opens Charlotte Gray is the first hint: this is a long-lost classic from The War that fell through a time warp and landed at our feet today. (If only the film were in black- and- white, that would cinch it.) Old-fashioned in the best … more…
It’s like a hope thing, you know, it’s… hope. It’s… Look, there’s a lot of dead boys, so there’s heartbreaking photos in shop windows all over town, handsome young men in uniform, and bunting and flags. It’s enough to make ya weep like a little girl. It’s like an American thing. It’s an all-American thing.
Toss a coin: Which do you prefer: A Heartwarming(TM) tale of one man’s triumph over mental illness? Or one director’s biting off more than he can chew and falling rather flat on his face? Or one more mostly terrific performance from Crowe? No need to look for a three-sided coin — you get all three in A Beautiful Mind.
So perhaps it’s not surprising that this vision, this valentine to a vibrant and alluring city would come not from native New Yorkers but native Texans Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson.
Other critics have already dragged out the $10 words to describe this film — some of the ones I’d chose myself are ‘seductive,’ ‘masterful,’ ‘majestic,’ and ‘elegant’ — and you must believe what they say because they say True Things. But the one thing that strikes me most about LOTR: FOTR, besides its seductively masterful and majestic elegance, is simply how utterly right it is.
Are you up for a little larceny that may be dangerous but is too much fun to pass up? Are you up for a smart dumb movie, the kind of delicious popcorn flick you get when some of the most talented and most watchable people in the biz let their hair down? Cuz this ain’t a movie that’s been fortified with vitamins and minerals or morals or anything good for you — this is pure cinematic junk food of the highest, tastiest order.
A festival favorite around the world and winner of the best screenplay award at Cannes this year, Danis Tanovic’s No Man’s Land is a view of the strife in the former Yugoslavia that only a Bosnian could make, by turns mordantly funny and tragically affecting.
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