Black Swan
2010.108 Minutes. Rated R. “What is she doing here?” I was reluctant to watch Black Swan when it was out in theaters, and again after its release. I am always reluctant to watch a movie after it receives so much fanfare. I have only watched a couple of films with Natalie Portman, and I never formed an opinion about her acting. I am not particularly fond of psychological thrillers, either. As fate would have it, I was...
Atonement
2007.123 Minutes. Rated R. “Come back. Come back to me.” The film is composed like Stieglitz’s “Steerage” photograph: a view filled with abstraction, happenstance and the consequence of class, bad luck and a passage that is separated by two distinct journeys. The direction of Joe Wright makes a complex narrative appear so simple. Like Stieglitz taking a “shot” at a complex narrative in one frame, Wright composes an equally...
An Unfinished Life
2005.108 minutes. Rated PG-13. “But what I can’t do is to continue to lie here every day and watch you mourn for a life you think you should have had. There are people everywhere who think they got dealt a bad hand. . .” Lasse Hallström directs an all-star cast of Robert Redford, Morgan Freeman and Jennifer Lopez through a cinematic idyll in the Wyoming farmland. The cast seeks a corrective for their choices in a quiet story of...
Cars 2
2011.106 Minutes. Rated G. “Tow Mater, average intelligence.” I feel obliged to offer some insight into the new release of Cars 2. I have been watching the original Cars on average of about once every two weeks courtesy of my four (4) year-old who just loves Lightning McQueen and the cast of car-achters. I took my son to see Cars 2 in theaters when it was released in June, and now its release onto DVD has compelled me not...
Bridesmaids
2011.125 Minutes. Rated R. “I’ve seen better tennis playing in a tampon commercial.” Bridesmaids is a hilarious account of one woman’s fall from grace and her legitimate shot at regaining her form through a circle of dedicated friends and an unlikely romance. Annie Walker (Kristen Wiig) is forced to close her bakery after a tough economic turn. Forced to live with a male roommate and his sister who is “visiting” from England,...
