With a script dating back to the mid-1970s, it’s perhaps no surprise that Woody Allen’s “Whatever Works” plays like a rough sketch of the ideas that informed Allen’s late-’70s masterpieces, “Annie Hall” and “Manhattan.” With Larry David as Allen surrogate Boris Yellnikoff, “Whatever Works” occasionally finds laughs along its all-too-predictable route through love and misanthropy in New York.
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It’s odd to hear the voice of a 40-year-old Woody Allen coming out of the mouth of a 62-year-old Larry David, who’s being directed by a 73-year-old Allen.
But that’s the feel of “Whatever Works,” the director’s latest film based on a script he wrote three decades ago with Zero Mostel in mind to star (Allen picked it up again during the threat of an actors’ strike more than a year ago).
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I don’t believe I have ever been as disappointed as I was when I walked out of Public Enemies. It hit all the right notes for a gangster film and has every important trait you need for a film from one of cinema’s oldest genres to work. It is a workmanlike project and therein lays the problem.
I love Michael Mann. I love Johnny Depp. I love Christian Bale. Yet, all three men played a part in my disappointment of this movie.
There are some movies you walk into with the knowledge that they are not going to be the second coming and when you are entertained, it is all worth the experience. Public Enemies has the ingredients for a fantastic movie. Michael Mann has directed some of recent cinemas best films, from Last of the Mohicans to Heat to Collateral to Miami Vice and I have enjoyed everything the man put out. Johnny Depp is one of my all time favorite actors and I have loved Christian Bale since I first saw him in American Psycho. There was no reason this movie should fail.
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Based on Jodi Picoult’s book — but altered in drastic ways from that best-seller — “My Sister’s Keeper” is a classic cinematic tear-jerker that asks the right moral questions of this family’s situation.
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With a compelling performance from the radiant Michelle Pfeiffer, gorgeous period costumes, sets and cinematography, and potent chemistry between Pfeiffer and co-star Rupert Friend, “Cheri” seems to have all the ingredients for a steamy, if light-weight, romantic drama.
But the soufflé falls flat, as “Cheri” collapses under the weight of too much melodrama and not enough real, substantial drama.
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You can’t accuse director Michael Bay of false advertising when it comes to “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.” The picture is as explosive and loud and ridiculous as most expect.
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What is our place in the world? That is the quest this couple takes on in “Away We Go,” a film from a big-name director and featuring several name actors, all trying their hardest — too hard — to make an independent film.
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