June 2008
34 posts
James Cooper: "Lost" in the American Funhouse: A...
In an arena packed with thousands of fervent and passionate supporters in the early days of summer, Senator Barack Obama emerged triumphant, effectively clinching the nomination to become the presumptive leader of the Democratic Party and prepared for a contentious general election against Republican rival, John McCain. Here, in his victory speech, Mr. Obama contextualized his candidacy within...
George Lang Review: Mongol
Never assume that historical dramas must be dry and ponderous — Sergei Bodrov’s “Mongol” is a thrilling, blood-and-guts action film about the early life of Genghis Khan. Between the awe-inspiring imagery and nearly endless series of power challenges and visceral splatter, “Mongol” delivers a fascinating story of how a 13th century warlord came to be.
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Matthew Price Review: Wanted
“Wanted,” directed by Timur Bekmambetov of the “Night Watch” films, is a visually arresting, over-the-top paean to violence. Based on the graphic novel by Mark Millar and J.G. Jones, the film takes a different slant than does the source material but manages to improve on it.
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James Vance Review: Mongol
A film that purports to tell the story of Genghis Khan’s formative years sounds more like a Monty Python premise than a serious piece of cinema, but “Mongol” pulls it off with style, intelligence and enough sheer entertainment value to place it among the most satisfying films to hit local screens this summer.
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Brandy McDonnell Review: WALL-E
Only the geniuses at Pixar Animation Studios could create an adorably clunky, inarticulate robot janitor capable of eliciting warm fuzzies and merry giggles in equal measure.
“Wall-E,” the latest film from Oscar-winning “Finding Nemo” director Andrew Stanton, may be animated, but it’s the best science-fiction movie of the past several years.
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Cory Cheney Column: Urban Tulsa, 6-26-08
I think Get Smart is supposed to be a sort of parody, but it doesn’t really come off that way. It’s just sort of… cute.
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Michael Smith Review: Priceless
Romantic comedy meets the human comedy on the French Riviera in “Priceless,” a worthwhile study in how money still can’t buy you love, but it sure comes in handy at the Ritz-Carlton and when shopping at Chanel.
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Michael Smith Review: The Love Guru
I’ve always appreciated Mike Myers for making films that were so ridiculous that they made us all laugh, often at ourselves. But “The Love Guru” is ludicrous to the point of being desperately unfunny, as Myers creates a character who is basically an extension of Wayne Campbell and Austin Powers — still the class clown, still mugging for the camera, still craving to be the center...
George Lang Review: The Love Guru
“The Love Guru” reeks of desperation, testing the already stretched boundaries of what Mike Myers will do for a cheap, exhausted laugh. But since there is an audience for urine-soaked mop fights, elephant sex scenes and humor at the expense of nearly all physical conditions, “The Love Guru” is here to tap that demographic with a sledgehammer.
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George Lang Review: Get Smart
By veering away from the tone and style of the Mel Brooks/Buck Henry original series, Peter Segal’s “Get Smart” deprives its audience and its usually hilarious star, Steve Carell, of any real fun. Like Nora Ephron’s revision of “Bewitched,” this is a classic case of filmmakers not trusting good source material.
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Phil Bacharach DVD Review: 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2...
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days is a harrowing, starkly told tale of abortion and rape in the waning years of Romania during the oppressive Ceauşescu regime Winner of the prestigious Palme d’Or at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, the movie is all the more brutally effective because it is so straightforward in its presentation, chronicling a day in the life of two young women caught in the most...
Michael Smith Review: Get Smart
A big-budget version of the 1960s TV comedy classic “Get Smart” has bigger stars than the show. It has more action. It does not have writing as witty as that of the show’s creators, Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, so it does not have more smarts.
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Joe Wertz: A year premieres
Two Okie filmmakers captured the creative lives of seven state artists working on an ambitious, year-long art project. The documentary film “Art 365” will make its public debut at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, 415 Couch Dr. on July 3. The film was directed and produced by Cacky Poarch and Melissa Scaramucci, both organizers of the deadCENTER Film Festival. Poarch and Scaramucci were...
Phil Bacharach DVD Review: Redacted
The controversy that surrounded the theatrical release of Redacted generated much heat and precious little light. Based on a March, 2006, incident in which five U.S. soldiers raped an Iraqi girl and murdered members of her family, the film attracted far more interest in political circles than it did at the multiplex, where it seemingly played for roughly 20 minutes. Conservative pundits excoriated...
Phil Bacharach DVD Review: Diva - The Meridian...
Revisiting Diva more than 25 years after that magical viewing, I must admit this French import hasn’t aged nearly as well as most wines from that country. The picture’s Hitchcockian setup and oddball characters still make for breezy fun, but the passage of time has made it fairly obvious that director Jean-Jacques Beineix’s visual sleekness is only a so-so substitute for...
Kathryn Jenson White: deadCENTER 2008
Well, the final film has screened, and the winners have taken home their trophies. The final event was a 9 p.m. awards ceremony followed by an outdoor screening of “Nerdcore Rising” on a beautiful summer night. Sponsor Stella Artois had plenty of product available. It was all good: Cold beer, good film, balmy night, cool people sharing a passion.
I saw many films, some of which amazed...
Catfish Cinema
In honor of the now-concluded deadCENTER Film Festival, enjoy this trailer for Brad Beesley’s Okie Noodling 2, which premiered at the fest. Beesley is a gifted documentarian, even if his film subjects might make the State Chamber of Commerce shudder.
Kathryn Jenson White: "American Teen" at...
As a docfreak, I’m always eager to find a new documentary to love and talk about. “American Teen” fills that bill. I saw it last night at deadCENTER, screened at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. The film pushes the boundaries of documentary making in ways that will, upon its commercial release, get talked about with energy and enthusiasm, I’m willing to bet. What’s...
George Lang Review: Before the Rains
James Ivory and the late Ismail Merchant created a brand of literate exotica in their filmmaking, and “Before the Rains” is quintessential in its Merchant/Ivory stateliness. Director and cinematographer Santosh Sivan captures India’s lushness in this tale of infidelity and ambition in the waning days of empirical rule, even if the story never achieves the transcendence of its visuals.
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James Cooper Review: The Incredible Hulk
Of course, “The Incredible Hulk” is a better movie than Ang Lee’s 2003 attempt to bring Marvel Comics’ popular superhero to the silver screen. This feat, however, is a simple one, a task that merely demands that any subsequent filmmaker charged with said duty to avoid the many pitfalls that Mr. Lee seemed happy to leap into at every turn with his previous endeavor. Click...
Michael Smith Review: The Happening
Mother Nature fights back in “The Happening,” an ecological thriller from filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan in which quite a bit happens, but not much of it terribly meaningful or thrilling.
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Matthew Price Review: The Incredible Hulk
Edward Norton plays Bruce Banner in “The Incredible Hulk,” a love letter to the 1970s series that mixes “The Fugitive” with “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” Norton’s Hulk, a CGI-creature, isn’t all Hyde, however. While he’s fueled by rage, he maintains some of Banner’s emotions, and can be calmed by Elizabeth Ross (Liv Tyler), Banner’s former girlfriend...
James Vance Review: The Incredible Hulk
To answer your first question: Yes, this time they did it right.
In fact, they did “The Incredible Hulk” so right that it just might become the next big hit of the summer. If theatergoers can get past the fear and loathing generated by Ang Lee’s disastrous 2003 take on the character, they’ll find that this new adventure of the big green bruiser is as entertaining and...
George Lang Review: American Teen
Nanette Burstein’s “American Teen” acts as a strong antidote to the glitzy bilge of MTV’s “My Super Sweet 16,” following five 17-year-old seniors as they navigate the social Darwinism of a Midwestern high school. The documentary, which shows this weekend at the deadCenter Film Festival, will ring true for teens and remind former teenagers just how glad they are that those years are over.
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Kathryn Jenson White: At the Edge of deadCENTER
Well, today is the day OKC joins — as it has for eight years now — the ranks of Toronto, Telluride, Cannes and Sundance with its annual film fest: deadCenter. With more than 90 films in its five days at eight locations, deadCENTER is the answer to the requests we film lovers send out repeatedly to the uncaring universe: “Please, uncaring universe, send us some good films.” Brian Hearn...
Kim Voynar Review: Sex and the City
I can only review this film as a fan of the series, so I’m not sure how well it will play to someone who’s completely unfamiliar with the characters and their history, but Sex and the City fans should find it sublimely satisfying.
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Doug Bentin on the "B" Attitudes: The Screaming...
Recent DVD and theatrical releases of movies by Dario Argento have started me thinking about that oddball breed of cinema we know as “cult movies,” or “guilty pleasures.” I’m one of those people who don’t usually use the latter term because if I enjoy a movie I don’t see any reason I should feel guilty about it. Hell, if I felt the need to apologize every...
Michael Smith Review: You Don't Mess with the...
Zohan is an Israeli counterterrorism agent, a Hebrew superhero capable of outswimming speedboats, catching bullets in his nostrils and blowing them back at foes and performing no-hands push-ups. He is a sexy man. He is a legend to his people. He is a Jewish James Bond who takes his hummus pureed, not stirred. But Zohan envisions more, say, going to America to pursue his dream: Cutting and...
George Lang Review: You Don't Mess with the Zohan
“You Don’t Mess With the Zohan” shoots mass quantities of hummus at the wall, and surprisingly, quite a bit of it sticks. And it’s not limited to Adam Sandler catching hacky sacks with his gluteus or the boudoir scene with Charlotte Rae of “The Facts of Life.”
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Brandy McDonnell DVD Review: Semi-Pro
“Semi-Pro” falls somewhere in the middle of the spectrum of Will Ferrell’s growing canon of sports comedies. It doesn’t offer the unhinged hilarity of “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby” but has its uproarious moments, unlike the laugh-free soccer flick “Kicking and Screaming.”
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George Lang Review: Kung Fu Panda
Beholden to treasured cinematic legacies and a culture shared by over a billion people, “Kung Fu Panda” deftly dodges a minefield of potential disappointments and emerges victorious. Its generic title might be too on-the-nose, but its spirit is wise.
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George Lang Review: Son of Rambow
With their super-absorbent brains and free time for dreaming, children often have rich fantasy lives in which an imaginary place or identity offers security against the cruel world outside. “Son of Rambow” is a superbly comic evocation of that creativity and innocence.
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James Vance Review: Then She Found Me
Helen Hunt hasn’t registered very strongly on the big screen since her 1997 Oscar-winning turn in “As Good as It Gets,” but with her new film, “Then She Found Me,” she’s making up for lost time.
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