December 31, 2008
The Wrestler
(out of four)
Everybody knows wrestling is fake, but those are real professionals throwing Mickey Rourke around the ring and real staples piercing skin in one particularly grisly fight.
Thrust into the Oscar spotlight after winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Fest, The Wrestler features one of those exceptional, born-to-play roles by Rourke, relying just as heavily on the former heartthrob's background in boxing as it does on the off-screen mileage he has endured en route to this comeback.
Continue reading "The Wrestler"
Posted by Peter Debruge on December 31, 08 at 01:59 AM | Comments (0)
November 14, 2008
Wall-E
(out of four)
"Out there, there's a world outside of Yonkers," goes the Hello, Dolly! number that plays over the opening images of Wall-E — a sentiment that encapsulates the hopes and dreams of the last little trash-compacting robot on Earth while echoing another famous Pixar motto as well: "To infinity and beyond!"
In a sense, Buzz Lightyear's catchphrase remains the motivation of every leading Pixar character and director since: to reject the arbitrary boundaries of their world and achieve something different, unique. Could it be a matter of time before the Acad follows suit and starts recognizing Pixar achievements in categories beyond animation?
Posted by Peter Debruge on November 14, 08 at 08:00 PM | Comments (0)
December 21, 2007
Romance & Cigarettes
(out of four)
John Turturro's Romance & Cigarettes is a labor of love (and that doesn't even count the Sisyphean two-year challenge the director faced in actually getting the movie in front of audiences). That's because his creation tackles love in all its banal forms — a married man (James Gandolfini) stepping out with a younger lady (Kate Winslet), the man's devoted wife (Susan Sarandon) willing to humor any fault of his but this and the teenage daughter (Mandy Moore) head-over-heels for a neighborhood tomcat (Bobby Cannavale) — each one presented with such fresh intelligence you'd never guess the subject had already surfaced in a million other movies.
Continue reading "Romance & Cigarettes"
Posted by Peter Debruge on December 21, 07 at 05:01 PM | Comments (0)
April 07, 2007
The Earrings of Madame de...
(out of four)
From the opening shot, Max Ophuls’ masterpiece is a tug-of-war between passion and propriety, opulence and restraint. We discover Madame de… (Danielle Darrieux) pawing through her possessions — fur coats and exquisite jewelry the likes of which silver-screen fantasies are made — until she finds the one item she feels safe selling, a pair of diamond earrings that were a wedding gift from her husband (a Sean Connery-strong Charles Boyer).
Throughout the picture, Ophuls’ camera is a moving, dynamic participant in this romantic charade. Introducing his title character as a thing of envy, he withholds her face until the last moment of the shot, finally catching it reflected in a vanity mirror, a captive to the trophies of her privileged lifestyle. The countess's surname will remain the movie’s secret, as befits a lady of polite French society, but she could just as easily be called Gabrielle, the subject of a radically different portrait of similar tensions by director Patrice Chéreau. Both films concern emotional violence in a loveless French marriage, and though Ophuls approach may seem formal, it’s miles removed from the detached austerity of Chéreau’s attempt.
Continue reading "The Earrings of Madame de..."
Posted by Peter Debruge on April 7, 07 at 11:24 PM | Comments (0)
February 23, 2007
The Lives of Others
(out of four)
Some foreign films don't feel foreign at all. In The Lives of Others, German newcomer Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck directs with an elegance that will seem instantly familiar to American audiences. But more than that, his Oscar-nominated debut presents a picture of East Germany that echoes our current concerns with privacy and paranoia. Set in 1984, five years before the Berlin Wall came down, this drab Orwellian stage hosts a truly universal parable.
For its intended audience, the movie serves as a conscience-cleanser of sorts, a way of coming to terms with East Germany's past at a time when ordinary citizens were arrested, interrogated and harassed by the Stasi, or secret police. But we needn't evaluate The Lives of Others in German terms. In crossing the Atlantic, the movie gains in layers and relevance, anchored always by the intelligence — and grim humor — of Henckel von Donnersmarck's script. He makes a risky decision, choosing for his protagonist someone who might easily serve as the villain of another film, an obedient middle-aged Stasi captain named Gerd Weisler (Ulrich Muhe).
Continue reading "The Lives of Others"
Posted by Peter Debruge on February 23, 07 at 10:03 AM | Comments (0)
February 16, 2007
Oscar Nominated Documentary Shorts
(out of four)
There’s no question, of all the Oscar shorts categories, the year’s best is also the batch that will be hardest to see: the documentaries. The 2006 crop represented earnest stories about big issues — recovering from genocide in Rwanda, life after nuclear devastation in Hiroshima, the ethics of photojournalism in African hotspots — but were, by and large, clumsy and unpolished treatments of those subjects. The Oscar went to the most professional of the bunch, a snoozy PBS-style profile on golden-age radio host Norman Corwin.
Even the worst of this year’s noms is better than last year’s best. And three of the four are simply outstanding.
Continue reading "Oscar Nominated Documentary Shorts"
Posted by Peter Debruge on February 16, 07 at 10:01 AM | Comments (0)
October 06, 2006
The Departed
(out of four)
Critics have a soft spot for directors such as Scorsese, which renders reviews for movies like The Departed virtually meaningless to the rest of us. Does a rave mean anything to the casual film fan, or is it just another example of critics reading too much into a so-so action movie? The truth is, from the outset there was nothing certain about Scorsese's latest — everyone attached had at least two strikes against him going in — so when I say The Departed is the best film of the year, rest assured there is no favoritism at play here.
Continue reading "The Departed"
Posted by Peter Debruge on October 6, 06 at 04:05 PM | Comments (0)
December 16, 2005
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
(out of four)
By now, you've probably heard about the cowboy movie in which two men's love for one another is so strong that they travel great distances to overcome prejudice and prove their devotion. But Brokeback Mountain isn't the only end-of-year Oscar contender that fits that description, and while Tommy Lee Jones' The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada may not be about the love that dare not speak its name, it concerns another issue of social inequity all too often swept under the rug.
Continue reading "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada"
Posted by Peter Debruge on December 16, 05 at 04:19 PM | Comments (0)
June 17, 2005
Me and You and Everyone We Know
(out of four)
Every so often, a movie blindsides you, leaving you feeling different, enlightened, possibly even improved. Me and You and Everyone We Know is such a movie. It's a revelation really, a disarmingly upbeat debut film from performance artist Miranda July. Head and shoulders above everything else at Sundance this year, Me and You is an intimate little ensemble about a struggling multimedia artist (July) who chauffeurs old folks for a living, a divorced shoe salesman/potential love interest (Deadwood's John Hawkes) who's losing touch with his two sons, those two sons, and three precocious neighborhood girls. There are other characters, too, but these seven make up the film's core, united by their desire to connect with someone beyond themselves.
Continue reading "Me and You and Everyone We Know"
Posted by Peter Debruge on June 17, 05 at 12:37 PM | Comments (0)
October 22, 2004
Sideways
(out of four)
Jack is an altar-bound ex-actor determined to find and seduce some fun-lovin' gal in the week before his wedding. Miles is a self-deprecating wine lover who passes up every opportunity for romance because he's still hung up on his ex-wife. These two guys represent opposite ends of the spectrum of middle-aged male behavior: On one extreme, we have the sex-starved free spirit who indulges his basest instincts, while on the other, there stands the neurotic, insecure guy who sabotages his chances for fear of where a new relationship may lead. On the surface, Sideways is the story of what happens when Miles (Paul Giamatti) takes Jack (Thomas Haden Church) on a bachelor-party road trip through California wine country. But at a deeper level, it serves as a revealing examination of life, wine, fidelity and the bizarre workings of men's minds. Sideways spins the bottle, if you will, on the guys and doesn't let 'em off so easily. Directed by Election's Alexander Payne, the movie reflects the same charitable spirit and humor that marked his last picture, About Schmidt, and gives his cast (including wife Sandra Oh) a chance to shine.
Posted by Peter Debruge on October 22, 04 at 01:57 PM | Comments (0)
September 30, 2003
Fargo
(out of four)
Fargo is a movie built upon a lie. It's bogus, hokum, a sham, not to mention completely and utterly brilliant. The lie starts with a title card at the beginning of the film, which somberly announces, "The events depicted in this film took place in Minnesota in 1987. At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred." Now, in hopes of snookering a whole new crowd of viewers, you'll find those same words where a synopsis should appear on the back of the newly released special-edition DVD.
Posted by Peter Debruge on September 30, 03 at 10:17 AM | Comments (0)
June 04, 2002
L.I.E.
(out of four)
Before Anthony Hopkins, actor Brian Cox played the original Hannibal Lecter ("Lektor") in the nearly forgotten Manhunter. He's half psychopath and half grandpa -- there's something about Cox's steely eyes and bulldog jowls that could go either way -- and you never quite know whether to trust the characters he plays. In L.I.E., he's creepier than ever as a benevolent monster who goes by the nickname "Big John," a child molester who has learned to live with the fact that he destroys the young lives he touches. Cox tackles an extremely complex character, without question last year's most interesting villain (sorry Sir Tony, but Hannibal's a has-been). On the outside, Big John's a smooth-talking veteran respected by his community, while behind closed doors, he corrupts its youth.
Posted by Peter Debruge on June 4, 02 at 10:28 AM | Comments (0)
May 24, 2002
CQ
(out of four)
Roman Coppola, whose father fathered The Godfather, chose for his directing debut a movie about the movies. But instead of serving up some pretentious exercise about the making of a classic, he uses the disastrous production of a campy work of "eros-fiction" as our entry into the world behind the cameras.
The year is 1969, and an arrogant French filmmaker (Gerard Depardieu) has lost his focus. He's in love with his star (Angela Lindvall) and incapable of finishing his film. Set in 2001, the sexy space odyssey stars a Barbarella-like secret agent, codename "Dragonfly," whose mission seems to be making sexual liberation an intergalactic priority. Naturally, she spends most of her time on-screen cavorting naked in her shag-carpeted spaceship. Which is fine, of course, if only there were an ending.
Posted by Peter Debruge on May 24, 02 at 09:09 AM | Comments (0)
November 23, 2001
In the Bedroom
(out of four)
Camden, Maine is one of those quiet northeastern towns where everyone seems to earn his living by fishing. Even the local doctor, Matt Fowler (Tom Wilkinson), sneaks the boat out and goes trolling for lobster whenever he gets a chance. Camden's a good place to raise a child, a safe place. But Dr. Fowler's son (Nick Stahl) isn't a child anymore. Frank's in college now, home for the summer, where he's dating a beautiful, once-married woman named Natalie (Marisa Tomei) with two kids of her own.
Continue reading "In the Bedroom"
Posted by Peter Debruge on November 23, 01 at 09:52 AM | Comments (0)
August 03, 2001
Ghost World
(out of four)
Think of Ghost World as the movie that makes good on American Beauty's
promise to "look closer." From its opening scene, the movie capitalizes on an almost malicious
attention to detail. Rather than soaring over anonymous rooftops, the camera peers through
several apartment windows to record the routine absurdity hidden inside. It's the yin to
American Beauty's yang: a darker, more cynical exploration of suburban teenage
malcontents.
Continue reading "Ghost World"
Posted by Peter Debruge on August 3, 01 at 09:44 AM | Comments (0)