Tag: Movie Reviews

Burn After Reading | C-

director: Joel & Ethan Coen
starring: George Clooney, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Brad Pitt, Richard Jenkins

barWhat the frick was that? How do the guys who put together No Country For Old Men make this near-revolting turd of a movie? Burn After Reading tries to be many things at once, and by doing so fails miserably at all of them. Had this been strictly a screwball comedy, or strictly a spy movie, or strictly a drama/thriller, it might’ve worked. But the mashed-together genres and the transition between them are so jarring you’re left slack-jawed with incredulity. It just doesn’t work.

There are moments that should be laugh-out-loud funny; there are moments where you should be on the edge of your seat; there are moments where you almost start appreciating the great character work by the actors. But the laughter dies in your throat; the appreciation for acting fades; and the comprehension of the plot could only be considered “sound” if you’ve done copious amounts of illegal narcotics.

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The Curious Case of Benjamin Button | A

director: David Fincher
starring: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, Julia Ormond, Taraji P. Henson

ben buttonThere are movies you’ll go see having heard next to nothing about, perhaps only having seen the poster or a brief trailer while watching television. I knew very little about Benjamin Button prior to heading into the theater, other than it starred Pitt and was directed by Fincher. The latter is pretty much enough to get me into the theater, Fincher being one of my favorite directors. But it’s always nice to have your faith rewarded with an outstanding moviegoing experience. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was a highly enjoyable experience, and it is most certainly on my official top ten list for 2008 (were there an actual, official top ten list penned by yours truly, you’d surely have seen it by now….OR WOULD YOU HAVE?!).

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Quantum of Solace | B+

director: Marc Forster
starring: Daniel Craig, Mathieu Amalric, Judi Dench, Olga Kurylenko, Jeffrey Wright, Giancarlo Giannini

Quantum of SolaceFrom what I’ve heard, reviews of the latest James Bond outing seem to be fairly split between “fantastic action that carries on the outstanding precedent of 2006’s Casino Royale,” to “a boring, poorly-edited, plotless waste of time.” I guess some people are just too hard to please, because I freakin’ loved it, albeit with a few caveats. If you haven’t seen Casino Royale recently, you might be a little lost early on, and forget about knowing what the frick’s going on if you haven’t seen Royale at all. So, if you haven’t seen it yet, stop reading and go check it out. It’s well worth your time, so much so that I even upped it a grade after having watched it again this past weekend. And my one piece of advice before seeing Quantum of Solace is to do just that: watch it again, even if you’ve seen it before. The plot here carries a bit more resonance if you’re familiar with the character arc Bond starts upon in Royale.

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W. | B

director: Oliver Stone
starring: Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Banks, Richard Dreyfuss, James Cromwell, Jeffrey Wright, Thandie Newton, Ellen Burstyn, Scott Glenn

W.No matter your opinion of our current president, it’s clear George W. Bush has been one of the most polarizing figures of the last fifty years and will be talked about in the history books decades from now for the impact he’s had on the United States and the world during his presidency. Whether that turns out to be positive or negative remains to be seen, despite how strongly you may feel one way or the other. Thus, it doesn’t seem too outlandish for a biopic on the man while he’s still President and still very much in his prime years. He’s a fascinating figure that bears analysis, and who better (or worse) to do that than Oliver Stone?

I’ve always found Stone’s films to be compelling, even if they’re a mess (Any Given Sunday is a good example). More often than not, though, he covers topics important in a societal sense, from the horrors of war in Platoon to the amoral exploitations of the media in Natural Born Killers. In any case, there’s an inherent bias in his point-of-view, as I’m sure we all have, but he typically avoids subtlety in making sure the audience knows what his views are on a given subject, whether that there was a government conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy (JFK), or that the majority of pro athletes are hopelessly egotistical drug addicts (Any Given Sunday). The point is, don’t expect to get a completely objective film on a given subject from Oliver Stone.

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