November 2008
32 posts
Phil Bacharach Review: Frozen River
(Oklahoma Gazette)
Deep ‘River’
As a poor mother turning to smuggle immigrants, Melissa Leo is mesmerizing in ‘Frozen River.’
This election year, you hear a lot about the middle class, but not so much about the poor — certainly not the kind of marginalized folks who comprise the universe of “Frozen River,” an astounding first feature from writer/director Courtney Hunt. In this hardscrabble...
Phil Bacharach DVD Review: Priceless
It’s light. It’s fizzy. It’s intoxicating. Priceless is a French romantic comedy that boasts some of the best attributes of champagne, only without a hangover.
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Michael Smith Review: Bolt
In a year that the Mouse House has produced a Miley Cyrus concert movie and a gabby Chihuahua flick, the company combined these moneymaking ideas — pair Cyrus with another talking dog — and the result is Disney movie magic, one of this year’s best family films.
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Brandy McDonnell Review: Twilight
The modestly budgeted film adaptation of “Twilight” doesn’t have quite the bite of Stephenie Meyer’s addictive novels.
But the legions of fans of the phenomenally popular four-book series should be thrilled with the movie, which remains faithful to the first novel without being handcuffed to it.
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Brandy McDonnell Review: The Boy in the Striped...
To call writer-director Mark Herman’s “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” a heartbreaking powerhouse film is an understatement.
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James Vance Review: Synecdoche, New York
Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman has carved out his own little quasi-arthouse corner of the American movie world with complex journeys into the psyche such as “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and “Adaptation.” With “Synecdoche, New York,” he’s turned to directing his own material, and the results are memorable but mixed.
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Kim Brown Review: Twilight
First things first. Was “Twilight” any good? The answer is mostly yes, with a little bit of no here and there. It’s not nearly as black and white as a film with this much hype would seem.
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George Lang Review: Synecdoche, New York
To say that Charlie Kaufman’s “Synecdoche, New York” is an encapsulation of human frailty, yearning, love, lust, life and death makes the film sound pretentious and overreaching. But Kaufman, the pop surrealist who wrote “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and “Being John Malkovich,” has been building up to this his entire career.
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Doug Bentin on The B Team
A couple of day ago I picked up a copy of the new book The B List: The National Society of Film Critics on the Low-Budget Beauties, Genre-Bending Mavericks, and Cult Classics We Love. I could do without the word “mavericks” in the title as I’ve had enough mavericky hoo-ha lately to last me a lifetime or three, but the book addresses a type of movie I dearly love so, what can you do?
In...
Cory Cheney: Voices in the Wilderness: Are Movie...
Movie critics are going the way of the dodo, the path of irrelevancy.
We like to think the time we put into watching the film, writing the review, amounts to something. I’m not sure it does. I think the internet and a deluge of inferior films have combined to weaken our profession to the point of borderline irrelevancy.
Maybe not “weakened.” Maybe the proper term is “diluted.”
Used to be, the only...
Phil Bacharach DVD Review: Kit Kittredge: An...
Based on the mega-popular line of dolls, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl is everything you want from a child-friendly flick. It’s touching and positive, well-crafted and even bound to entertain parents. And now, several months after a commercially disappointing theatrical release in the summer of 2008, the current economic meltdown has made this Depression-era period film disconcertingly...
Michael Smith Review: Quantum of Solace
“Quantum of Solace” is Bond in butt-kicking mode, and the result is both physically brutal and emotionally satisfying, in perhaps the most action-packed edition of the 007 franchise.
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James Cooper Review: Quantum of Solace
“Quantum of Solace” is a good film, if not a great one. The film lacks the emotional resonance, the visceral vulnerability of “Casino Royale,” that film’s emphasis on a young agent figuring out exactly how he enjoys his martinis and how to escape from certain inescapable danger.
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Gene Triplett Review: Quantum of Solace
Snatching up the “Casino Royale” story line one hour later, “Quantum of Solace” literally hits the ground rolling in high gear with Daniel Craig as James Bond behind the wheel of a sleek black Aston Martin DBS, foot through the firewall as he careens along a treacherously curving mountain road, locked into a pulse-pounding car chase that will surely prove deadly for some of those...
Gene Triplett DVD Review: Risky Business
Hard to believe it’s been 25 years since Tom Cruise slid across the floor in his stocking feet and jockey shorts, lip-syncing to Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock and Roll,” simultaneously creating one of the most iconic movie scenes of the ’80s and establishing himself as a major star.
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George Lang DVD Review: Hancock
Peter Berg’s nervy, sloppy and enthusiastically cynical “Hancock” should never have been Sony Pictures’ July 4 weekend “tentpole” release — perennial summer box-office champ Will Smith plays a toxic avenger in a scabrous superhero tale that hardly equals popcorn escapism.
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Michael Smith Review: Soul Men
This Bernie Mac-Samuel L. Jackson comedy pairing should be called “Grumpy Old Soul Men.” But it’s just “Soul Men,” a would-be laugher that’s as tired as the erectile dysfunction jokes it depends on for shtick.
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Michael Smith Review: Rachel Getting Married
A princess no longer, Anne Hathaway plays wedding crasher in “Rachel Getting Married,” a drama with a severe sense of comedy that makes it feel authentic to the roller coaster of emotions that are nuptials.
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Kim Brown Review: Role Models
Kids need people to look up to these days, that’s for sure. But it’s hard to find obvious mentors in the stars of “Role Models,” a buddy comedy with a bit of an attitude.
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Evan Derrick Review: Quantum of Solace
While Quantum of Solace remains myopically focused on its priorities, wasting time is certainly not one of them. Action, however, is, and 10 seconds past the slinky credits (serviceable, but not nearly as clever as Casino Royale’s, an observation that sadly applies to the entire film) Daniel Craig is whipping his Aston Martin around paper-thin curves as gun-toting suits rat-a-tat-tat him and any...
Tracking Hitchcock by Kim Brown
I’m no film scholar, but I am a big fan of Alfred Hitchcock movies. Who isn’t?
When my mother introduced me to “The Birds” as a kid, I was frightened and fascinated, and more importantly, hooked for life.
But it wasn’t until college that I actually had the chance to learn about his influences in German Expressionism, his filming techniques and the personal quirks that...
Evan Derrick Review: Rachel Getting Married
Put crassly, Rachel Getting Married is like a 2 hour episode of The Office without any of the humor. Unpleasant, uncomfortable, and even seat-squirmingly painful to watch, it is neither funny, adorable, nor particularly heartwarming. (despite what the blatantly misleading marketing campaign would have you believe) But it is the best work director Jonathan Demme has done since Silence of the Lambs...
Evan Derrick Review: Happy-Go-Lucky
Director Mike Leigh (Vera Drake, Topsy-Turvy) introduces us to the cotton candy world of Poppy, a British grade school teacher with zest for life rivaled only by Mary Poppins on acid, in his latest outing, Happy-Go-Lucky. The optimist within me wanted to keel over in giddy adoration of this film, but the narrative stickler kept kicking the optimist in the gut.
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George Lang Review: Rachel Getting Married
Jonathan Demme’s “Rachel Getting Married” feels like a brief view into the lives of real people, as if the Buckman family lived well before this wondrous film begins and continues long after it ends. Yes, it confirms Anne Hathaway’s chops to anyone who might have doubted her ability, but this film is the work of many people giving their natural best.
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James Vance Review: What Just Happened?
Every so often, Hollywood turns out a smart and snarky self-portrait like “The Player,” “S.O.B.,” the original “A Star Is Born” or “Swimming With Sharks” — delightfully dark reverse-valentines that exist predominantly to remind the ticket-buying public that our favorite form of entertainment is brought to us by egomaniacal pond scum.
Some of those films have been masterpieces and some have bitten...
Kim Brown Review: RockNRolla
“RockNRolla” is one of those movies that makes you feel like you’re walking in slow motion as you exit the theater.
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Michael Smith Review: Zach and Miri Make a Porno
It’s fun to watch Kevin Smith’s relationship comedies to see the couples interact, because this is a man who knows how to make sparks fly between two people. Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks click this way in “Zack and Miri Make a Porno,” which for all its promise of titillation has one graphic scene that’s much like something teen boys stay up and watch on Skinamax...
Michael Smith Review: Madagascar 2: Escape 2...
The animals in “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa” could only qualify as wild if the term pertained to their song-and-dance numbers, or their comedy pratfalls.
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Michael Smith Review: Happy-Go-Lucky
It might be too much to say that “Happy-Go-Lucky” will be a life-changing experience for filmgoers, but if they don’t leave the theater with a frown turned upside down, well, that’s a shame.
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George Lang Review: Happy-Go-Lucky
Mike Leigh is the master of improvisation-based filmmaking, a technique that imbues his wide-ranging subject matter with uncommon humanity and realism. This is especially true of “Happy-Go-Lucky,” a deep and affirming character study of a woman who always looks on the bright side of life.
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George Lang Review: Madagascar 2: Escape 2 Africa
“Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa” features all the elements fans expect from a sequel, ramping up all the sights and sounds that played well in the original. Not everything works, but the film’s sly sense of humor makes up for some glaring imperfections.
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Mike Robertson: What Will Drew Barrymore Do to...
by Mike Robertson, The Oklahoma Gazette
Besides reviewing movies, I’ve done a fair amount of freelance reporting for the Oklahoma Gazette over the last year and a half. I got a “real” job a while back, so I don’t do too much of that anymore, but one of the things I covered most was the local roller derby leagues.
Depending on where you live, chances are there’s a roller derby team operating...