Sunday, January 1, 2012

SIDELINE: MORE REVIEWS FOR 12/11

A round-up of the non-Criterion movies I saw in December.



IN THEATRES...


* The Adventures of Tintin, a surprisingly fun 3D adventure from Steven Spielberg with all the appropriate nods to Hergé.

* The Artist, a loving and entirely accurate tribute to the silent era of cinema.

* A Dangerous Method, Jung and Freud meet David Cronenberg.

* Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, is an absolute corker. Brad Bird delivers the best in the series.

* We Bought a Zoo, an effective new feature from Cameron Crowe...but is it any good?




ON DVD/BD...

* The Art of Getting By, a predictable but solid Young Adult story, with fine performances by Emma Roberts and Freddie Highmore.

* Behind the Mask, a mid-40s misfire that attempts to turn the popular Shadow radio serials into...light comedy?!

* The Birth of a Nation: Deluxe 3-Disc Edition, D.W. Griffith's historically inaccurate epic is an important piece of cinema, but that doesn't stop it from being racist and boring.

* Crime Story: The Complete Series, the Michael Mann police drama set in the 1960s but made in the 1980s.

* A Farewell to Arms, Frank Borzage's masterfully melodramatic adaptation of Ernest Hemingway.

* Friends with Benefits, not even Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis can make this sex comedy misfire come off as either sexy or funny.

* Incident in an Alley, a middling early 1960s crime film based on a Rod Serling short story.

* Nothing Sacred, a slight bit of entertainment from 1937, directed by William Wellmen and starring Carole Lombard and Frederic March.

* Seven Chances, an hilarious Buster Keaton short where the great comedian plays a man in desperate need of a wife.


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