After nearly four years absent from the big screen, Will Smith decided to make his return with a sequel no one asked for. “Men in Black 3” could practically be imagined by anyone blessed with an ounce of imagination, and until the third act, that’s about what we get. The first film was a smash […]
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Peter Berg’s “Battleship,” “based on” the board game, is the sort of film that contains the caption “Hong Kong, China,” as if to remind the viewer that the events aren’t unfolding in the rival Asian metropolis of Hong Kong, Nebraska. The caption is an indication of just how low the film’s sights are set, made
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Sacha Baron Cohen is perfectly capable of going after hard targets. And that’s the biggest disappointment about “The Dictator,” which at times suggests he’s going soft. Certainly, the gags are profane, vulgar, and habitually dedicated to annihilating good taste. But the edge that drew blood in both “Borat” and “Brüno” is dulled to harmlessness. Then
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“The Avengers” should please just about everyone looking to see a group of Marvel characters battling it out with aliens and each other. As for everyone else, it should at least amuse them, too. And it’s the film’s accessibility that becomes a hindrance, as pleasing just about everyone inevitably means thrilling no one. The characters
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Don’t let the title, shared with a silly ’80s pop beat, fool you. “I Melt with You” is all doom and gloom, a drug-fueled journey through the miseries of four middle-aged friends over the course of a wild week at a beachside mansion. The four friends, played by Thomas Jane, Rob Lowe, Jeremy Piven, and
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I have a question I’d like to pose to Jim Levinstein, the hero of the “American Pie” series: did you think that was a good idea? I’d be asking about the scene midway through “American Reunion” where Jim, suffering through a sexless marriage to his wife, decides to spice things up a bit by donning
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Peter Weir’s 2010 film “The Way Back” is a magnificent true story that just so happens not to be true. Based on “The Long Walk” by Gulag survivor Slawomir Rawicz, the film concerns a group of Soviet prisoners in 1939 who make a run for freedom. Problem is, they start in the middle of Siberia, trekking south towards hopeful freedom. By the time the surviving escapees reach safety, they’ve walked over 4,000 miles.
Rawicz’s book was apparently inspiring enough to sell over half a million copies upon publication in 1956, though recent records have indicated that the author did not escape from the Gulag, but was released in 1942. So the film was at least inspired by, if not directly based, on the tale of a liar, one who might have found that merely surviving the Gulag wasn’t itself an interesting enough story. We’re commonly moved by entirely fictional stories, but does a lie accepted as truth deserve the same respect?
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With an American remake for The Raid: Redemption already slated, I have the perfect man in mind for the lead role: Jason Statham. Really, it can only be him, because this hyper-violent Indonesian actioneer, hailed as the second coming of Hard Boiled by its supporters, in fact plays much more like anything from Statham’s oeuvre than it does an actual classic blood-pumper like the best works of Asian filmmakers such as John Woo or Jackie Chan.
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