Olivier Assayas seems to have taken more than a purely directorial liking to Kristen Stewart which is just as well seeing that her face and body (acting is a whole different story) are probably the best thing about his ridiculous Palme D’Or contender “Personal Shopper”. Set largely in Paris, with cameo appearances by a haunted …
As entertaining as it is flawed, ‘American Ultra’ is sure to divide audiences with its haphazard mix of ultra-violence and heartfelt romance. A gleefully-belligerent experiment in style that thumbs its nose at your expectations.
In the end, our bodies betray us. Most aren’t fortunate enough to go out on their own terms, but some are dealt a crueler fate than others. While most films treat Alzheimer’s disease with overwrought melodrama and naïveté, Still Alice stares unflinchingly into the abyss. Bolstered by a haunting performance from Julianne Moore and the focused storytelling of filmmakers Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, this film has the raw power to simultaneously crush and rejuvenate your spirit. Painful, required viewing for life’s brutal training ground.
Camp X-Ray Written and directed by Peter Sattler USA, 2014 Director Peter Sattler leads us down the path of purported empathy and compassion in his debut film, Camp X-Ray, only to come up short in depicting the relationship between a female soldier assigned to Guantanamo Bay and a man she befriends who has been imprisoned there …
Based on a popular novel by Lisa Genova, Still Alice is a weepy portrait of a linguistic professor, Dr. Alice Howland, battling early onset alzheimers shortly after turning 50 years old. Boasting a cast that includes Alec Baldwin, Kirsten Stewart, Kate Bosworth and the always electric Julianne Moore, above all else this is a film that leans on strong performances. This is not a film about script, ideas or even direction, it is about the intimacy of faces and the passion of performers.
“Everything is hitting me at once,” announces Maria Enders (Juliette Binoche), just minutes into director Olivier Assayas’ English-language Clouds of Sils Maria. It’s a subtle line that quickly introduces us to the frazzled female headspace that Assayas and Binoche have jointly crafted in this Bergman-esque melodrama.
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 Directed by Bill Condon Written by Melissa Rosenberg USA, 2012 You’ve come to this review with one goal in mind, no matter which camp you fall into. You’re a true believer, an obsessive “Twi-hard,” a name you wear with pride, spoiling for a fight with a critic …
Snow White and the Huntsman Written by Evan Daugherty, John Lee Hancock and Hossein Amini Directed by Rupert Sanders USA, 2012 The more – pardon the pun – grim of 2012’s two adaptations of the Grimm brothers’ classic tale isn’t quite as dark a revisionist reworking of the Snow White story as some in other …
A Bottle in the Gaza Sea Directed by Thierry Binisti Written by Thierry Binisti and Valérie Zenatti France/Canada/Israel, 2011 Friends who want to stay friends don’t discuss religion or politics. Contentious and divisive, discussions about these hot topic issues tend to lead to fiery debates, with interlockers entrenched in their predisposed ideologies. Verbal disputes …
The plot thickens quite literally for the dueling Snow White films reported months ago. There is the Julia Roberts led adaptation versus the Kristen Stewart-Charlize Theron saga. And saga it will be! EW reports that production hasn’t even begun yet on Snow White and the Huntsman starring Kristen Stewart and Chris Hemsworth (Thor) as …
While the soundtrack to The Runaways may not be revelational, it, like the film, provides a satisfactory, if somewhat fast-paced, dip into ’70s sleaze-rock. In a film that focuses women trying to make their way in what was essentially a man’s world, it seems a bit odd that only Suzi Quatro gets top billing on …
The Twilight Saga: New Moon Directed by Chris Weitz Are we to expect more from a feature film than from an average episode of a daytime soap? That’s one of many questions to be begged not only of casual moviegoers but of even the most hardened fan of Stephenie Meyer’s socially negligent Twilight series as …