AppsScraps Movie Reviews

Burn After Reading

2012-08-13T18:56:00.002-04:00

Release date: 27 August 2008 (Venice International Film Festival)

The Coen brother's success as directors draws A-list stars to their films and Burn After Reading is an example of this. The plot is vintage Coen with quirky characters, subtle humour and violence; this is black comedy through and through. Fitness centre staffer Linda (Coen regular Frances McDormand doing what she usually does) wants a lad and is seeking dollars for plastic surgery. CIAer Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich) has been fired and opts to write a memoir. His philandering wife Katie (Tilda Swinton) accidentally leaves the DVD with his memoir at the gym whereupon happy-go-lucky and not-too-bright Chat (Brad Pitt) finds it. Together with Linda, the duo concoct a plan to blackmail Osbourne. Meanwhile, Harry (George Clooney) a US Marshall and another philanderer doing the lowdown with Katie ends up meeting Linda through an internet dating site. The lives of all these folks and their various schemings all end up at Cox's house one afternoon - with typical Coen results. The stars are all great here and the Coen's commitment to messaging the baser motivations of common Americans is in fine form. Yet, it is this - the film's usualness - that is ultimately its undoing. We've seen these folks before and we know where the brothers Coen are going to take us.

My rating 7 out of 10.

Män som hatar kvinnor (aka The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo)

2012-08-13T18:56:00.000-04:00

Release date: 27 February 2009 (Denmark)

The fact Hollywood only took 2 years to release its remake of Stig Larsen's runaway worldwide bestselling novel - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - speaks volumes about both the book and the original 2009 Swedish film. Directed by Niels Arden Oplev, the film follows the search by investigative reporter Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) into the disappearance of a 16-year-old girl named Harriet - a member of a very powerful Swedish corporate family - in the 1960's. Hired by the girl's uncle Henrick Vanger (Sven-Bertil Taube) forty years on, Blomkvist is aided by a fine young lass with, you guessed it, a dragon tattoo and panache for internet and online hacking, Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace). Together they begin to unravel what is a neatly tied mystery involving cults and Nazis and some very sick family members. The film is an excellent whodunit and the forced and unbelievable love connection between the two main characters aside, is well worth watching.

My rating 8 out of 10.

L'estate di Martino (aka Mario's Summer)

2012-08-13T18:40:00.000-04:00

Release date: 9 August 2011 (Locarno Film Festival)

It's the 1980s and 15-year-old Italian Martino (Luigi Ciardo) wants to learn to surf, well, and capture the heart of Silvia (Matilde Maggio) who happens to be dating his brother. Conveniently, on the shoreline of his small town lies a US base where Captain Jeff Clark (an excellent Treat Williams of all people) lands occasionally to hang out. Clark, also conveniently, happens to be a surfer and is eventually teaching Mario about surfing, life and girls. The film is directed by Massimo Natale and uses a couple of historically accurate Italian crises - the 1980 crash of a plane near the island of Ustica ascribed to a wayward NATO missile, and the bombing in Bologna's train station in 1985 by terrorists to good effect. The result is a fine movie that while predicable in many respects is beautifully shot with great heart.

My rating 8 out of 10.

So I Married an Axe Murderer

2012-08-13T18:36:00.005-04:00

Release date: 30 July 1993

Back in 1993, Thomas Schlamme directed a just-emerging-into-his-genre Mike Myers as down on his luck San Fransico beat poet, Charlie MacKenzie, who meets the butcher of his dreams, Harriett, (an excellent, over-the-top Nancy Travis). So I Married an Axe Murderer is a comedic thriller where paranoia reigns supreme. While decidedly shallow on many levels and a little slow through its middle, there is enough crass comedy layered amid a refreshing love story and gratious violence to make the utter silliness of it all, well, work.

Not highbrow in the least and a great example of Myers doing the stuff that would make him millions later in the 90s, So I Married an Axe Murderer gets my rating of 6 out of 10.

Sneakers

2012-08-13T18:34:00.005-04:00

Release date: 9 September 1992

The first half of this movie is great - a real mystery unfolds and the ensemble cast including Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, Sidney Poitier, River Phoenix, David Strathairn and the beautiful Mary McDowell play perfectly off each other amid the action and comedy. Sadly when Gandhi, er, Ben Kingsely arrives halfway through the laces come undone as he unfolds a plot full anti-establishment angst. From this point on, Sneakers slows right down, and, like a novice marathoner on the 18th mile, never really finds its soul (pardon the pun) again.

Directed with aplomb by Phil Alden Robinson, Sneakers gets my rating of 7 out of 10.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2

2012-08-13T18:32:00.003-04:00

Release date: 7 July 2011 (London, England)

Finally the franchise ends ... or does it? Doesn't matter really, as David Yates tackles the most difficult gig in directorland and succeeds in giving the Potterites the conclusion they wanted and in step with the author's vision. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, Part 2 has Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) coming to terms with his history and his destiny as he faces evil Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) ... successfully. Like a perfect gift, this film is perfectly wrapped and tied with precision. So long Harry and farewell.

My rating 8 out of 10.

The Ramen Girl

2012-08-13T18:30:00.002-04:00

Release date: May 2008 (Milan Film Festival)

The late Brittany Murphy stars as Abby, an American lost in translation in Tokyo after her boyfriend up and leaves for Osaka. Unwilling to head home, she undertakes the challenge of learning the art of preparing ramen from a gruff and stoid chef named Maezumi (Toshiyuki Nishida). Along the way she meets Toshi (Sohee Park), her new lover and comes to terms with herself while learning the ramen ropes. Directed by Robert Allan Ackerman somewhere between drama and comedy, the film - while very good and essential viewing for any 'foodie' - missed its mark as great by not holding firmly to one genre or the other.

My rating 7out of 10.

Steamboy (aka Suchîmubôi)

2012-08-13T18:28:00.002-04:00

Release date: 11 September 2004 (Venice International Film Festival)

A beautifully filmed Japanese anime movie directed by master Katsuhiro Ohtomo. Steamboy, let us first say, is a gorgeous film to behold built sadly on a very light plot. In mid-19th century industrial England Rei, a young inventor, receives a gift from his grandfather Roid - a marvelous invention called the "Steam Ball" which can make any engine umpteen times more powerful. What ensues is a treatise on the good/bad of science as embodied in Rei's father and grandfather married to the evils a monolithic corporation - the Ohara Foundation - bent on capitalizing the ball for all its worth. It is a beauty to behold and a boredom to watch (the chase scenes aside).

My rating 5 out of 10.

Battle Los Angeles

2012-08-13T18:25:00.004-04:00

Release date: 8 March 2011 (Westwood, California)

If you can move past the movie's central premise and believe that anyone would actually want to save Los Angeles and/or if you're the type of movie goer who loves the patriotic - if idiotic - silliness of Hollywood's fascination for these US-Marines-battle-Aliens romps, you're going to love Battle Los Angeles and Jonathan Liebesman's direction. For the rest of us there is but a ever-so-thin plot driven by even thinner character development focused on one Sgt. Nantz (Aaron Eckhart). Battle Los Angeles is filmed in a Hurt Locker-style that - one supposes - adds grittiness and a real 'I'm-there' feel. Alas it doesn't help and this reviewer spent its overly long runtime praying the Aliens would win.

My rating 3 out of 10.

2012

2012-08-13T18:23:00.002-04:00

Release date: 11 November 2009 (Belgium)

You probably heard the world is ending in 2012 but seems John Cusak and Amanda Peet missed the memo. And so, instead, we're forced to watch them watch the world come a tumbling down a la the ancient Mayan - or was it Aztec - prophecy. Whatever. If you can suspend reality utterly and plant tongue firmly in cheek you may enjoy this noisy nonsense directed by Roland Emmerich. Made marginally bearable only thanks to the science of CGI, 2012 does make one think the world's end can't come soon enough.

My rating 2 out of 10

Unknown

2012-08-13T18:20:00.003-04:00

Release date: 16 February 2011 (Westwood, California)

When Dr. Martin Harris, a bio-technogolist from America (Liam Neeson) awakens from a coma after a traffic accident in Berlin, he discovers someone (Aiden Quinn) has taken on his identity. Not even his wife (January Jones) fesses up to knowing him. With the help of a cab driver named Gina (Diane Kruger) he begins to unravel the plot only to discover to his horror - and to the movie's credit - he is actually a bad guy in Berlin to blow up an Arab bigwig (Mido Hamada) and a too-smart-for-his-own good professor who is about to save the world (Sebastien Koch). While entertaining, the unknowns in Unknown simply take too long to uncoil despite Jaume Collet-Serra's 'let's-get-this-movie-ended' directing style. While made watchable for the first 40-odd minutes of mystery and the appearance of of Frank Langella (as Harris' US boss) midway through - Unknown ultimately uses too much umpf in getting to its point.

My rating 5 out of 10.

Red Riding Hood

2012-08-13T18:18:00.001-04:00

Release date: 7 March 2011 (Hollywood, California)

Catherine Hardwicke directs the latest version of Little Red Riding Hood's journey to grandma's house in this thriller. When Valerie's (Amanda Seyfried) sister is killed by a werewolf, she starts to suspect something's up with her rather odd family, in particular her gramdmother (a mis-cast Julie Christie who seems to forgotten everything about acting) who lives all alone out in the woods. The townsfolk are on the warpath to do-in the naughty werewolf led by the town's priest, Solomon (the always good Gary Oldman). The story in its broadest sense is familiar and the manner of filming here is refreshing. Yet even with the twists along the way, Red Riding Hood ultimately fails to engage this viewer - blame Seyfried and Christie- and the ending involving relevations about Valierie's dad, Cesaire (Billy Burke) leave little bite.

My rating 4 out of 10.

Morning Glory

2012-08-13T18:15:00.003-04:00

Release date: 17 December 2010 (Dubai International Film Festival)

The marriage of Diane Keaton (as morning newshow host Colleen Peck) and Harrison Ford (as hardnews anchorman Mike Pomeroy) can't ever be wrong and Morning Glory is no exception. Keaton is the longtime host who must adapt to Ford's arrival on set as a crummondoey, serious political news hack with little patience for 'lite' news. The clash of egos is hilarious. Add into the mixture the young producer charged with making these two work together, Becky (Rachel MacAdams), her love interest Adam (Patrick Wilson) and the station's bigwig President, Jerry (a very good Jeff Goldblum) and you will find yourself laughing out loud. Roger Mitchell directs this silliness in the usual Hollywood fashion. Morning Glory works despite this and delivers enough humour, romance, and heart to make watching this newscast worth it.

My rating 7 out of 10.

The Goonies

2012-08-13T18:12:00.002-04:00

Release date: 7 June 1985 (Canada)

Richard Donner directs the outstanding screenplay by none other than Steven Spielberg in this 1980s young-at-heart escapist adventure. When Mikey (Sean Austin) and big brother Brand's (Josh Brolin) house is slated to be confiscated by an evil developer, the pair commence a search for pirate gold to find the money necessary to stave off foreclosure. The film is pure fun with a lightheartedness that is completely refreshing. The script weaves young romance, awkwardness, friendship, adventure and comedy perfectly. Two characters stand out and truly make the film - Chunk (Jeff Cohen) and of course, Mama Fratelli (Anne Ramsey). With Kerri Green (as Andy), Martha Plimpton (as Stef) and Jonathan Ke Quan (as Data), The Goonies remains a quintessential coming of age adventure that is a classic.

My rating 9 out of 10.

Gulliver's Travels

2012-08-12T23:42:00.003-04:00

Release date: 25 December 2010 (Canada)

Wow, such silliness. Gulliver's Travels is a slap-in-the-face to the original story and certainly takes it in new directions. Jack Black is Lemual Gulliver, a hapless mail room clerk working at a New York newspaper with no ability to take a risk or chance and a serious case of infatuation with the paper's travel editor Darcy (Amanda Peet). When he inadvertently offers to write an article for her she accepts and promptly sends him to the Bermuda Triangle. There, in true Oz fashion, he ends up in a whirlpool and shipwrecked on the island of Liliput, suddenly the biggest man on the block. The film from there follows the ups and downs of King Theodore's (Billy Connolly) kingdom and the love life of his daughter Princess Mary (Emily Blunt). Directed by Rob Letterman, Gulliver's Travels tells the story of one man's journey to self-discovery and love, yet despite that lofty goal, is still pretty awful.

My rating 3 out of 10.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I

2012-08-12T23:40:00.001-04:00

Release date: 11 November 2010 (London, UK)

As the Potter saga nears its (final) end, the series has once again returned to some fine film-making. All the usual suspects are back again and Voldemort has managed to wrestle control of the Ministry of Magic at Hogwarts. Harry, Ron and Hermione continue to race against time to destroy the Horcruxes and complete the work left undone by Dumbledore. Directed by David Yates, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I is a fine - and perhaps more importantly, mature - film that satisfies from beginning to end.

It has left big shoes to fill for its final segment and has my rating of 8 out of 10.

The Switch

2012-08-12T23:35:00.006-04:00

Release date: 20 August 2010 (Canada)

Jennifer Aninston and Jason Bateman star in this comedy about the dangers of playing with sperm. Aninston is Kassie, a woman who decides enough is enough and opts to have a baby through artificial insemination. Bateman is Wally, her best friend. At Kassie's artificial insemination party, Wally gets drunk and replaces his sperm with the sperm donor's (a sedate Patrick Wilson). Switch then to 7 years later and Kassie has moved back to New York City with her son Sebastian. What ensues is a slow and funny revelation as Kassie tries to get Roland and Wally more involved in their lives and the slow realization that Sebastian is not the son of the father she thinks. Directed by Josh Gordon and Will Speck, The Switch - while silly beyond belief - had this reviewer laughing outloud from the get-go and with the addition of Jeff Goldblum (as Leonard) and Juliette Lews (as Debbie) is well worth sitting down to watch.

My rating 7 out of 10.

The Rite

2012-08-12T23:30:00.001-04:00

Release date: 26 January 2011 (Hollywood, CA)

Anthony Hopkins stars as Father Lucas, a renowned if creepy, Jesuit exorcist while Colin O'Donoghue is your typical priest challenged by his belief in god, Father Michael Kovack. The two meet in Italy and watch over a young woman purportedly possessed by demons (yawn). Full of the usual rot and only redeemed - somewhat - by director Mikael Hafstrom's atmospheric framing, The Rite has no right to call itself anything but boringly embarrassing.

My rating 3 out of 10.

The Green Hornet

2012-08-12T23:28:00.002-04:00

Release date: 14 January 2011 (Canada)

The Green Hornet is a tongue-in-cheek poke at the genre of superhero films and if you go into the film with that front of mind, you will enjoy the sting it provides. After the sudden death of his father James (Tom Wilkinson), playboy Britt Reid (Seth Rogen) finds himself the new topdog of the Los Angeles' "The Daily Sentinel" newspaper empire. Initially he maintains his playboy lifestyle until one night when he and his driver Kato (Jay Chou) stop a robbery. The revelation leads Britt and Kato to create superhero The Green Hornet. This film, directed by Michel Gondry, is a you-get-what-you-expect affair made enjoyable - despite the undertone of racial stereotyping - by the addition of a sultry Cameron Diaz (as Leonore Chase) and an excellent badguy with self-confidence challenges named Chudnofsky (a superb Christoph Waltz).

It is an Inspector Gadget meets the Goonies film and gets my rating of 7 out of 10.

Cooking with Stella

2012-08-12T23:21:00.001-04:00

Release date: 16 September 2009 (Toronto International Film Festival)

A clash of east meets west ensues when a foreign service diplomat (Lisa Ray) and her chef husband Michael (Don McKeller) are transferred to the Canadian High Commission in New Delhi. In their new home they meet Stella, their cook, who over 30 years of service has learned how to pad her salary with some pilfering here and there. Michael is keen to learn all he can about Indian cooking and works to gain Stella's trust and the two start sharing recipes. When Michael and his wife hire Tannu (Indian star Shriya) to care for their baby, a new dynamic enters the house. Tannu is very honest and looks down on Stella's thievery. Cooking with Stella, while an uneven film, gives us a good story of how people acclimatize to a new culture and in doing so find the ability to change their views.

Directed by Dilip Metha with comedy amid its seriousness, it is a foodie's film worth seeing. My rating 6 out of 10.

Tron: Legacy

2011-06-07T08:57:00.000-04:00

Release date: 30 November 2010 (Tokyo, Japan)

Still fabulous after all these years, Tron: Legacy, directed by Joseph Kosinski, brings us back to gladiatorial games and netherworld of life on The Grid in a fashion the original cult sci-fi classic never dreamed of. Starring Jeff Bridges as gaming guru Kevin Flynn (and his alter Tron ego, Clu); Garrett Hedland as his son Sam; and Olivia Wilde as Quorra, the perfect ISO lifeform created in the Grid that Clu is determined to wipeout, Tron: Legacy is full of flash and special effects wizardry. While the story's themes are breathtakingly deep, the movie does not have the time to full develop or explore them which is really unfortunate. Still, the film is beautiful on oh-so-many levels and will remain timeless in a Blade Runner fashion.

My rating 8 out of 10.

Source Code

2011-06-07T08:53:00.000-04:00

Release date: 11 March 2011 (South by Southwest Film Festival)

Duncan Jones directs this sci-fi adventure that sees a near-dead army pilot, Coulter Stevens, being teleported (though some magic of physics not wholly explained) into a Chicago commuter train's last eight minutes before a bomb blows it up. His mission is to discover who the bomber is so as to avert an even bigger dirty nuclear attack that is going to happen in the 'present' time. Source Code is essentially an action vehicle for Jake Gyllenhall bookended by a romance between Stevens and fellow passenger Christina (Michelle Monaghan) and victim of conscious Colleen (Vera Farmiga) trying to navigate whether or not to let our hero Stevens finally die. Source Code is a fun movie despite the constant deja-vu. With tighter writing to really add depth to the exploration of Steven's situation 'living' amid life and death and futher examination of the consequences his tinkering with time could have, Source Code would have been an instant classic.

My rating 7 out of 10.

Incendies

2011-06-07T08:48:00.000-04:00

Release date: 4 September 2010 (Telluride Film Festival)

When their mother, Nawal Marwan (a superb Lubna Azabal), dies, twins Simon (Maxim Gaudette) and Jeanne (an excellent Melissa Desormeaux-Poulin) are given instructions through their mother's will to find their brother and father. This strange yet simple start to the film, based on the play written by Wajdi Mouawad, then evolves into a moving recounting of Nawal's life in Lebanon as a mother, terrorist and prisoner that is both captivating and brutal to watch. Several scenes will leave you breathless with sadness. Directed by Dennis Villeneuve, Incendies was Canada's entry into Best Foreign Picture at the Oscars in 2011, and is certainly one of the most beautifully crafted films in sometime. As their search into the mysterious roots of their mother's life progresses - leading to tortuurer Abou Tarek (Abdelghafour Elaaziz) - an awful truth is revealed with all its devastating impact. Incendies is a film not to be missed.

My rating 10 out of 10.

The Box

2011-04-09T14:22:00.000-04:00

Release date: 17 September 2009 (Lund Fantastick Film Festival)

Camera Diaz plays Norma Lewis, the far-too-older looking wife of Arthur (James Marsden) in this psychological sci-fi thriller built in the X-Files and Twilight Zone vein. Using Richard Matheson's short story Button, Button (which was actually made into a Twilight Zone spot) as his jumping off point, director/writer Richard Kelly takes the film into the pseudo-spiritual world casting a very good Frank Langella as Steward, a born-again NASA bigwig whose job it is oversee the testing of humankind. Clear? Well, the test is the box, which, if you hit its big red button will kill someone you don't know somewhere in the world and leave you $1M richer for it. The premise is intriguing and this reviewer thoroughly enjoyed the ride Kelly gives us - as outlandish, silly and outrageous as it all is. Kudos to Pallet, Butler and Chassagne for their perfectly realized music for this film. While frustratingly murky to the nth degree, it's still worth pushing The Box's button.

My rating 7 out of 10.

Robin Hood

2011-04-09T14:19:00.000-04:00

Release date: 12 May 2010 (Cannes Film Festival)

(Yawn) yet another Robin Hood movie. Ridley Scott, no less, directs this version and opts to pack plenty of star power into his merry film in hopes - we think - to distract viewers from the fact this is yet another Robin Hood movie, and a bad one at that. Scott even tries a new angle to distract us by tackling Robin Hood's before-the-merry-gang life as a crusader with Richard the Lionhearted, his return to England and his saving of King John's throne from the French. Sadly, despite a decent Russell Crowe as Maximus (oops, I mean Robin Hood), Cate Blanchett as Marion, William Hurt as Marshall, and a great Mark Strong as evil Godfrey, this movie is a dreadful mess. Raspberries to a dreadful Oscar Issac (as King John) and a morose Matthew Macfadyen (as the Sheriff of Nottingham). Scott's film delivers no heart so we are left adrift with characters so similar in their construct they seem cutouts. Too long by half, this Robin Hood is lost in the Nottingham woods from the get-go and ought to have stayed there.

My rating 2 out of 10.