Movie Review: ‘Doubt’ & ‘Frost/Nixon’
Doubt — *** Frost/Nixon — ***1/2 The differences between Doubt, an adaptation of John Patrick Shanley’s stage play directed by the playwright, and Frost/Nixon, an adaptation of Peter Morgan’s play directed by Hollywood filmmaker Ron Howard, reveal two approaches to theatrical adaptations. Doubt looks like a stage production forced to be a movie, while Frost/Nixon is a cinematic production of a popular play. Both Doubt and Frost/Nixon are good films, but Frost/Nixon borders on greatness because, despite being more cinematic, I’m never aware that I’m watching a movie. Doubt, with distracting oblique camera angles and calculated, theatrical dialogue, makes it hard to engage the story at its most basic level. And it’s a story that should be engaging. Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep) accuses Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) of sexual abuse based on novice Sister James’ (Amy Adams) reports....
Read MoreMovie Review: Australia
Australia (2008)–*** Baz Luhrmann’s Australia isn’t proof that the historical epic is back, but if we’re lucky Luhrmann’s sumptuous epic will do for the genre what his Moulin Rouge! did for musicals and Romeo + Juliet did for Shakespeare. Australia is brash, big, and beautiful, and it’s more accessible than the controlled messes that were Luhrmann’s previous films. Most audiences will still have to let their guard down a little, but when they do, the reward is an rapturous romantic adventure that is far and away more entertaining than the ones we experienced in the 1990s. Nicole Kidman stars as Lady Ashley, an English aristocrat who travels to Australia’s Northern Territory to convince her husband to sell their cattle business to the Carney Cattle Company. When she arrives, she’s met in Darwin by the raucous, ruggedly independent Drover (Hugh...
Read MoreQuickie: Let the Right One In
Let the Right One In (2008)–**** Quickie Review A 12-year-old boy is bullied at school, but finds a friend in a vampire girl who looks his age. A puncture wound of a film, this Swedish vampire picture is so small and so simple you hardly know how deep it goes until the infection sets in. The film has more in common with dark indie dramas than other horror movies, but it burrows inside your mind like the best of the genre. Watch for Lina Leandersson’s amazing debut performance as the young vampire whose childlike glances morph into the determined looks of an aged soul with serious agenda. Directed by Tomas Alfredson and starring Kåre Hedebrant as the...
Read MoreMovie Review: Twilight
Twilight (2008)–*1/2 It’s hard being a vampire who is forever 17. An eternity of teen angst is worse than hell. The not being like all the other kids…ever. The bemoaning what you are. And if all the other vampires in your nest are paired off, all you really want is to find someone who gets you. So hard. Twilight, the adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s uber-popular teen vamp romance novel, is the vampire movie John Hughes would have made. It isn’t much of a horror picture, letting the most unsettling moments occur when the undead boy romances the human girl. I say unsettling because awkward just doesn’t accurately describe the level of creepiness surrounding the male protagonist. And that’s a stake through the heart of this teen romance. Bella (Kristen Stewart), the palest girl in Phoenix, gets shipped to live...
Read MoreQuickie: Rachel Getting Married
Rachel Getting Married (2008)–**** Quickie Review Just out of rehab, Kym returns home for her sister’s wedding, but it may be more than she and her family can handle. A rare family drama that is both unnervingly raw and decidedly heartfelt, this Jonathan Demme picture can take pride in its acute realism. It never sensationalizes the tragic subject matter, avoiding melodrama with an inspired cinéma vérité style that would make even Paul Greengrass envious. Anne Hathaway’s star-making turn as ex-junkie Kym propels this former Disney princess into serious actress territory for the first time after a few solid tries. Also starring an equally superb Rosemarie DeWitt as the title character. Rachel Getting Married is in theaters...
Read MoreMovie Review: W.
W. (2008)–*** When I told a co-worker that I was going to see W. this weekend, he asked why anyone would want to see a film about George W. Bush. It’s a good question. Why would anyone voluntarily endure another two-hours hearing about the life of an almost universally reviled president? My answer to him was simple: If we go see the film while Bush is president, we won’t have to think of him once he’s out of office. Director Oliver Stone’s W. does us the added favor of being a film we won’t necessarily want to remember. It’s not a bad film. In fact, it’s Stone’s best narrative work in more than a decade. But its claim to fame as the first picture about a sitting president doesn’t make it entertaining. Watching W. is at times like watching...
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