 |
  |
|
 |
||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||||||||
This Weeks Movie Reviews: When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts A Spike Lee Film. 40 Acres and A Mule Filmworks Production. Directed and produced by Spike Lee. Producer, editor, Sam Pollard. Cinematographer, Cliff Charles. Editors Greta Gandbhir, Nancy Novack. Composer, Terence Blanchard. Line producer, Butch Robinson. HBO producer, Jacqueline Glover. HBO executive producer, Sheila Nevins. I used to pore through my daddy's old Life magazines when I was a kid, fascinated by photographs of the night bombings of London during the Blitz, the firebombing of Tokyo, the bleak, bombedout ruins of Berlin at war's end and the utter, barren wastelands of Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the U.S. dropped the first atomic bombs in 1945. Read more...
Invincible Directed by Ericson Core. Written by Brad Gann. Cinematography, Ericson Core. Music, Mark Isham. Starring Mark Wahlberg, Greg Kinnear, Elizabeth Banks and Kevin Conway. Walt Disney Pictures, 2006. PG. 105 minutes. To scholars and hermits who still believe in dictionaries, "invincible" means unconquerable or incapable of being subdued. But the new film Invincible is putting wordsmiths on notice: "Invincible" isn't invincible any longer. A scrappy but highly romanticized film about the NFL career of former bartender Vince Papale, "invincible" doesn't exactly leap to mind as you watch Vince getting his ribs broken. What comes to mind is "crushable," meaning able to be shattered by pounding or grinding. But there's a secret message in the smarty title: Invincible, meaning not having the qualities of Vince. In other words, Vince Papale isn't like us. Vince Papale is special. Read more...
The Lake House Directed by Alejandro Agresti. Written by David Auburn, based on Il Mare by Eun-Jeong Kim and Ji-na Yeo. Music, Rachel Portman. Starring Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Christopher Plummer, Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Dylan Walsh. Village Roadshow Pictures/Warner Bros., 2006. PG. 105 minutes. Despite its odd premise, The Lake House is a surprisingly enjoyable romantic confection decorated with clever filming and a clear love for the city in which it's set. Alex (Keanu Reeves) and Kate (Sandra Bullock) are would-be lovers thwarted by the little problem of living two years apart. The setup shouldn't work, nor should the way they communicate, leaving letters in the apparently magical mailbox at the eponymous house, a glass-and-metal snowglobe outside Chicago. But — if you can refrain from poking too forcefully at the plot — it does work, thanks to a strong screenplay by David Auburn (Proof), the gentle, creative hand of director Alejandro Agresti and solid, winning performances from Reeves, Bullock and their lovely supporting cast. Read more...
The Quiet Directed by Jamie Babbit. Written by Abdi Nazemian and Micah Schraft. Starring Elisha Cuthbert, Camilla Belle, Shawn Ashmore, Martin Donovan and Edie Falco. Sony Pictures Classics, 2006. R. 96 minutes. The second feature film from director Jamie Babbit (But I'm a Cheerleader) is a muddle of dark, foggy rooms in which secrets and relationships play out to nasty ends. Nina Deer (Elisha Cuthbert) is a high school cheerleader who acts as if she had a perfect life before her parents (Martin Donovan and Edie Falco) took in their orphaned, deaf and mute goddaughter Dot (Camilla Belle). In their spooky, half-empty house, the Deers are a dreary, unsubtle version of the typical not-as-perfect-as-they-seem cinematic family. Mom pops pills; Dad's detached and rude, to say the least; Nina's troubles run far beyond her bitchy best friend and the burden of an unwanted houseguest. Read more...
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||
