A round-up of non-Criterion reviews I wrote this past month:
IN THEATRES...
* 50/50, as unserious as cancer. Or as serious as cancer. Kind of both. Great work from Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, and an all-around solid cast.
* Attack the Block, the ultimate summer movie shows up just in time for fall. (Unless you were lucky enough to get it in your town earlier, of course...)
* Contagion, in which Steven Soderbergh makes sure you'll never touch yourself again. On the face. ON THE FACE!!! But seriously, this movie is awesome.
* Drive, the best movie Paul Schrader never made. Ryan Gosling stars, all Alain Delon-like, in this violent tour-de-force by Nicolas Winding Refn.
* Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life, a biopic of Serge Gainsbourg from French cartoonist Joan Sfarr. It can't quite sustain its inventiveness, but I liked it all the same.
* Higher Ground, actress Vera Farmiga tackles feminism and faith in her directorial debut.
* The Lion King 3D, an old favorite shown in a bad new light.
* Moneyball, a surprisingly deep drama about the inner workings of baseball. (Note: One of the screenwriters was Aaron Sorkin. Did you know that?)
* Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure, a fascinating, thought-provoking look at one of the most infamous pre-internet viral sensations.
* Straw Dogs, a competent but pointless remake. Rod Lurie is no Sam Peckinpah. (Hey, I reviewed the original once, too.)
Portland was lucky enough to have Cinema 21 showing the original 3D version of Alfred Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder for a limited engagement. To go along with it, the Portland Mercury asked me to pick some other Hitch films for home viewing, and I did so by taking a tour of his trailers. Read the column online here.
ON DVD/BD...
* Boccaccio '70, four Italian film directors team for a 1962 anthology film telling individual stories of modern romance.
* Breakfast at Tiffany's, the quintessential Audrey Hepburn film is now on Blu-Ray.
* Hung: The Complete Second Season, Thomas Jane returns as everyone's favorite lovelorn hustler.
* If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front, a thought-provoking documentary about controversial radicalism.
* The Inspector General, this whitebread Danny Kaye musical is only offensive in how unfunny it is.
* One Minute to Zero, Robert Mitchum makes love to Ann Blyth and hits the snooze button in this Korean War drama.
* Road to Nowhere, Monte Hellman returns to the director's chair for a disjointed potboiler.
Saturday, October 1, 2011
SIDELINE: MORE REVIEWS FOR 9/11
Labels:
audrey hepburn,
documentary,
hitchcock,
monte hellman,
other reviews,
peckinpah,
soderbergh
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