film criticism by maryann johanson | handcrafted since 1997
The plastic terror of The Polar Express melded with the kooky charm of Forrest Gump is a bad, sometimes outright icky, way to tell a tale of trauma and recovery, and does a disservice to Steve Carell’s sensitive performance.
An elegant potboiler that judiciously balances psychological and physical suspense, one that feels like a romantic drama from WWII only recently rediscovered.
Puts CGI, IMAX, and 3D (and Joseph Gordon-Levitt) to perfect use. Everything here comes with a vertiginous thrill and a delightful enchantment.
Appears to poke, and not kindly, at how our society enables abusers of drugs and alcohol… until it stops being that interesting.
I can’t remember a trailer for a film that wasn’t science fiction or fantasy rocking me like this one does… and most of those trailers don’t do that, either.
Did you know that Eric Stoltz was originally cast as Marty McFly in Back to the Future? I seem to vaguely recall hearing something along those lines, but now there’s video evidence… because Robert Zemeckis actually shot for weeks before deciding that Stoltz was wrong for the role.
James Cameron is the 12th highest-grossing director in film history, having earned $1.117 billion (and that’s just domestically) from just seven films. With Avatar, he is likely to surpass Chris Columbus, currently at No. 5… and if Avatar does Titanic business, he could catapult to the No. 3 spot, behind Robert Zemeckis and the king, … more…
obsession: Doctor Who (two more David Tennants to go) boyfriend: George Clooney in Up in the Air (because he’s George Clooney) psyched: Sherlock Holmes (I’m gonna be really disappointed if this isn’t awesome) girl crush: Emily Blunt in Young Victoria (it’s good to be the queen) dreading: Did You Hear About the Morgans? (looks like … more…
Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach looked at a sweet-and-sour children’s story through a peculiarly skewed eye and said, This can be so much more. And they turned it into something touching and funny, and magically absurd and at the same time pointedly real. They turned it into something genius.
Probably the Brits were even more pissed about the trashing of Dickens: 1. A Christmas Carol: £1.9 million (NEW) 2. Michael Jackson’s This Is It: £1.4 million (2nd week; drops 52%) 3. Up: £1.3 million 4. The Men Who Stare at Goats: £1.2 million (NEW) 5. The Fourth Kind: £.85 million (NEW) (actual numbers, not … more…
