April 2008
41 posts
Cory Cheney Column: Urban Tulsa, 4-30-08
Hopefully I won’t have to watch a lot of crap like Deception. In some ways, I almost wish Hollywood would just commit to the bombast and try to make genre busting films that reinvent box office spectacle. Films like Deception are so tired, so already-seen it, I just don’t understand how they still get made. Click to read the rest of the column …
Doug Bentin on Mouse House Confidential
Is your daughter waiting in line already to buy tickets for “Miley Cyrus: The Jail Bait Tour?” You’ll see me there. Let’s see, do I have everything I need? Hat with a wide brim to pull down over my eyes? Check. Grubby raincoat? Check. Membership card for the Paul Reubens Fan Club? Check. Where does Disney go to recruit starlets these days? Who’s their talent...
Phil Bacharach's Favorite 10 Political Films
With one of the more interesting presidential election years in recent memory upon us, it seems like as appropriate a time as any for me to indulge myself with my 10 favorite political films of all time. Speaking as a committed film buff — OK, film geek is more like it — and someone who has made a career (of sorts) in politics, I have a special affinity for flicks that not only explore...
James Vance Review: Chop Shop
Director Rahmin Barani’s “Chop Shop” is pretty much the epitome of what American independent cinema should be giving us these days — confident, accomplished and utterly unlike the paint-by-numbers product churned out by the big commercial studios. Click to read the rest of the review …
Michael Smith Review: Baby Mama
What’s conceived on-screen is an amiable comedy that’s clever yet conventional, perceptive but predictable and never the laugh-out-loud farce that I wanted it to be. Click to read the rest of the review …
Brandy McDonnell DVD Review: American Gangster
Oscar winners Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe face off in “American Gangster,” now on DVD in a two-disc unrated extended edition. The compelling saga is inspired by the true story of Frank Lucas, who dominated New York’s drug trade in the 1970s, and Richie Roberts, the cop/lawyer who hunted, arrested and prosecuted him. Click to read the rest of the review …
George Lang Review: Deception
Even the title seems like something Showtime plays long after the children go to bed: “Deception.” Despite the presence of two fine actors, Hugh Jackman and Ewan McGregor, it is that kind of film — sex, shadows and skullduggery. It is just a better version of a Zalman King flick: Think “Red Shoe Diaries” with talent on display instead of just skin. Click to read the rest of the review...
Brandy McDonnell Review: Baby Mama
Former “Saturday Night Live Weekend Update” co-anchors Tina Fey and Amy Poehler reunite for the feature comedy “Baby Mama.” Former “SNL” scribe Michael McCullers wrote the screenplay and makes his directorial debut with the peppy comedy that offers some laughs but mostly feels like a wasted opportunity. Click to read the rest of the review …
Michael Smith Review: CJ7
“CJ7” isn’t the Cantonese translation for “E.T.: The Extra- Terrestrial,” but it might as well be considering Stephen Chow’s little comedy about a boy who befriends an otherworldly creature. This kid-friendly farce is a sweet-natured fairy tale compared to Chow’s past fi lms like “Kung Fu Hustle” and “Shaolin Soccer,” but equally offbeat and full of physical comedy. Click to read the rest of the...
George Lang Review: CJ7
When “Kung Fu Hustle” kicked martial arts fans in the funny bone, director Stephen Chow cultivated the fertile middle ground between Tex Avery and Jackie Chan. But “CJ7” is simply bewildering; it’s a zany, madcap misfire that cannot decide if it’s going to be a live-action Droopy Dog cartoon or a heartwarming boy-and-his-alien flick. Click to read the rest of the review...
Brandy McDonnell Review: Married Life
Strong and understated performances fuel the independent film “Married Life,” an intriguing mash-up of relationship drama, dark comedy of manners and Hitchcockian suspense thriller. Click to read the rest of the review …
Jim Chastain's Ramblings on Film
The fabulous Warren Theater has now opened in Moore , America , on Interstate 35, right next to the Wal-Mart, the new Furr’s, and many rows of strip malls. It’s a curious decision, to place what has been touted as the nicest movie theater in America smack dab in the middle of what has always been considered a blue collar town. Yeah, I know what they say — that Moore has one of the highest...
Phil Bacharach DVD Review: Lars and the Real Girl
The story of a severely dysfunctional young man who falls in love with a sex doll, Lars and the Real Girl polarized audiences during its 2007 theatrical release. If you hated it — and plenty of critics did — chances are you couldn’t get past a premise that sounded like a Saturday Night Live sketch that didn’t make it out of the 8 p.m. dress rehearsal. If you loved it...
Doug Bentin on Harold Lloyd
Harold Lloyd was born 115 years ago, on April 20, 1893. He was, in the incisive title of Kevin Brownlow’s and David Gill’s 1989 biographical film, “The Third Genius” of American silent film comedy, giving way only to Keaton and Chaplin (or Chaplin and Keaton, depending on the strength of your need for sentimentality). Lloyd wasn’t as funny in real life as either of his rivals could...
Kathryn Jenson White: NYC, NYC, KJW
On my recent trip to NYC, I binged a bit on independent and foreign films. My habit for years has been to drive to Dallas every six to eight weeks for a KJW Film Fest, seeing six to — personal best— nine films in a weekend. The cost is high, of course. With gas prices now, I spend about $200 for the filmic indulgence. Costs in NYC are even higher, but I don’t pay them. I go twice a year to...
Michael Smith Review: The Counterfeiters
Throw in a dash of “Stalag 17” here, a pinch of “The Great Escape” there and wrap it all in fake cash, and you’ve got “The Counterfeiters,” the Austrian film that surprised most by winning the 2008 foreign-language Oscar. Click to read the rest of the review …
Michael Smith Review: Snow Angels
It often hurts to watch “Snow Angels,” so authentic is the pain in this open wound of a film. It has been some time since a film showcased the personal anguish of marital estrangement like “Snow Angels,” a determinedly blunt, honest portrayal of the wrung-dry emotions of longtime love ending. Click to read the rest of the review …
George Lang Review: Under the Same Moon
In its transformation into a current hot-button political issue, illegal immigration became an abstraction for too many people who saw it only in economic or broad social terms. “Under the Same Moon” puts human faces with the issue, and while its situations and performances often veer toward shameless melodrama, the story of a 9-year-old boy crossing into the United States is a moving one....
George Lang Review: 88 Minutes
Few things are more depressing in movies than watching a great actor, one of the best of his generation, treading water in a project that does not deserve his presence. This is Al Pacino collecting a paycheck in “88 Minutes,” a procedural drama weighed down by a laughable script, hammy acting and a few key moments when Jon Avnet’s direction falls to the level of incompetence. Click to...
Kim Brown Review: Forgetting Sarah Marshall
“Forgetting Sarah Marshall” starts off crude, rowdy and vulgar and pretty much stays that way throughout, but you’re far too busy laughing to mind. It is really that funny — even for those outside the target audience of 12-year-old males. Click to read the rest of the review …
Phil Bacharach Review: George A. Romero's Diary of...
(Oklahoma Gazette, March 19, 2008) As the granddaddy of the modern-day zombie flick, filmmaker George A. Romero understands that the undead are so much more than simply people who have a good reason for smelling bad. Romero recognizes that zombies make for potent metaphors that — considering the restraints of rigor mortis — have surprising malleability. One minute, they’re monstrous ghouls with...
Brandy McDonnell on perspectives, expectations and...
“Nim’s Island” gallivanted into the kind of girl-power adventure I enjoyed as a youngster. “Semi-Pro” made me laugh when I had no reasonable expectation that it would elicit so much as a giggle. And “Alvin and the Chipmunks” wasn’t nearly as horrible as the atrocious hip-hop poster foreshadowed. I ended up giving all three recent releases somewhat positive reviews, and in each case, no one was...
George Lang Review: Smart People
“Smart People” is about people whose identities are wrapped up in being intelligent and educated but whose day-to-day behavior is self-absorbed at best, painfully stupid at worst. Noam Murro’s directorial debut often feels like a hastily assembled bundle of quirks, but a bright script by novelist Mark Poirier and an able cast make “Smart People” seem a little more human. Click to...
Michael Smith Review: Street Kings
The oozing-with-testosterone cop melodrama that is “Street Kings” would have been a perfect addition to the TBS program: “Movies for Guys Who Like Movies” if the show with TV’s highest body count were still on the air. Click to read the rest of the review …
Gene Triplett Review: The Counterfeiters
There are a number of excellent reasons why Austrian writer-director Stefan Ruzowitzky’s “The Counterfeiters” deserved its Oscar win for best foreign language film of 2007. The main prize-worthy aspect of Ruzowitzky’s screenplay is that it takes a look at the genocidal slaughter of European Jews by the Nazis from a perspective seldom seen in concentration camp films: It’s...
Michael Smith Review: The Ruins
You know the feeling: It’s nightnight time, you see a spider in the bedroom that escapes before you can eliminate it, and you shut off the light wondering if it’s on the bed, under the covers, on your leg, creeping upward… . That’s the seat-squirming sensation imparted at a viewing of “The Ruins,” a deceptively simple horror/sci-fi combo about college kids on a vacation-gone-bad thanks to a...
George Lang DVD Review: I Want Someone to Eat...
Fans of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” should immediately gorge themselves on “I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With,” written and directed by “Curb” co-star Jeff Garlin. It is a stellar example of “uncomfortable comedy,” but while reveling in squirm-worthy moments, “Cheese” is also a sweet and romantic story that pays both sly and direct homage to Paddy Chayefsky’s “Marty.” Click to read the rest of the...
Cory Cheney Column: Urban Tulsa, 4-9-08
The Ruins got in my head. Just a little. Enough to make me walk fast to the car and get home quick to see my wife and daughter. It was just so… hopeless. Click to read the rest of the column …
Kim Voynar Review: The Life Before Her Eyes
I loved House of Sand and Fog, and I’ve been waiting five long years to see what director Vadim Perelman would come up with next. His latest effort, The Life Before Her Eyes, starring Uma Thurman, Evan Rachel Wood and Eva Amurri, is a lovely, nuanced film packed with imagery, and bracketed by an intriguing storyline. Click to read the rest of the review …
Kim Brown Review: Stop-Loss
Writer/director Kimberly Peirce takes on the war in Iraqinher first theatrica l release since 1999, and in “Stop-Loss” she clearly wants the audience to learn a lesson. Click to read the rest of the review …
Gene Triplett Review: Shine a Light
In the earliest grainy black and white scenes of “Shine a Light,” director Martin Scorsese and his staff are seen struggling on the phone and in stress-charged meetings to obtain the set list for the Rolling Stones’ two-night stand at New York’s Beacon Theatre. The clock is ticking and the filmmaker apparently needs to know which songs are to be played and in what order...
Michael Smith Review: Nim's Island
To appreciate “Nim’s Island” is to embrace the spirit of a family film that recognizes exactly what a family going to the movies is seeking. Click to read the rest of the review …
Brandy McDonnell Review: Nim's Island
Girls in the 6-12 age range will enjoy watching one of their own illustrate pluck and courage in the tropical island adventure “Nim’s Island.” Click to read the rest of the review …
Michael Smith Review: Shine a Light
The Rolling Stones have never been bigger rock stars than in the Martin Scorsesedirected concert film “Shine a Light,” with the gigantic IMAX screen plumping up Mick Jagger’s lips and tongue to the size of the band’s famously robust logo. If that image turns you on, then you are truly a fan of the world’s greatest rock’n’roll band, and it is for you that this love letter to days gone by was made....
James Cooper Review: Funny Games (original 1997...
“Funny Games” (Michael Haneke, 1997) plays with the concept of audience expectation in such delightfully provocative ways that it is almost too clever by half in its ambitious task. Almost. It hardly seems fair to fault such a wickedly smart and decidedly brutal film for pushing the boundaries to the point of absurdity. Haneke’s original 1997 film (his own remake is currently...
George Lang Review: Leatherheads
Director and star George Clooney teams up with Renee Zellweger for “Leatherheads,” an ode to the early days of professional football and screwball comedies. While there is considerable charm on display, “Leatherheads” never coalesces into a film worthy of the genres and movies it so warmly emulates. Click to read the rest of the review …
Cory Cheney Column: Urban Tulsa, 4-2-08
And though I walked through the valley of the shadow of suck, I emerged last weekend into the land of mediocrity, and it was an improvement. Click to read the rest of the column …
Phil Bacharach DVD Review: Bonnie and Clyde
Extolling the greatness of Bonnie and Clyde is a little like remarking on how wet rain is. Oceans of ink have been spilled detailing the significance of the 1967 masterpiece about the real-life bank robbers, the most recent being Mark Harris’ excellent “Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood.” There is little about the picture that hasn’t...
Doug Bentin on Lon Chaney, part 3: West of...
April 1, 1883, is the birthday of Lon Chaney, and I’m spending a few days looking at some of his less well-remembered films. Known always for extravagant plots—and especially when he worked with frequent director/collaborator Tod Browning—Chaney often delivered pictures that would raise eyebrows even today. We’ll conclude this series with what is, I’m almost ashamed...
Doug Bentin on Lon Chaney, part 2: The Penalty...
April 1, 1883, is Lon Chaney’s birthday. To celebrate the 125th anniversary of Lon Chaney’s birth, I’m spending a few days looking at three of his lesser-known movies. Today we’ll examine a picture and a character that helped give rise to the 1920’s wisecrack, “Don’t step on that thing—it might be Lon Chaney!” “The Man of a Thousand Faces,” known in his day and ours as a master of makeup...