First, I’ll admit to you I’m not a huge fan of musicals—much less musicals on film. In numbers like “Light My Candle,” the songwriting falls into that abysmal style of reciting actions as they’re being depicted on screen. Roger and Mimi share an unnecessary exchange in song, “Oh the wax, it’s dripping/I like it between my…/fingers.” When Marc describes to Maureen’s new girlfriend, Joanne (Tracie Thorns), the…
Chris Brander (Ryan Reynolds) is an overweight, sensitive and genuinely caring kind of guy. In 1995, during his senior year, Chris (who is overweight and must wear the dreaded, heinous dental retainer) finally works up the courage (sort of) to finally reveal to his long-time friend, Jamie Palomino (Amy Smart) that he’s in love with her. He writes her a card, “Dear Jamie, I feel like we’re not just in high school, but like we’re in our own Chris and Jamie world.” Chris takes the card to a …
The Beardsleys have just moved in after the father gets the latest of many transfers in his duty as an Admiral of the U.S. Coast Guard. They have family drills, scheduled bathroom usage, and some of the kids refer to their father as “Admiral.” By contrast, the North children express themselves through song, or painting the roses in the garden bed…
Much noise has been made about Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson’s reputation, having been shot nine times, and so on… but that news comes at a time when it’s commonplace to imagine, if not actually see, rappers of his genre being so-called “tough” guys. By contrast, when Johnny Cash was arrested in El Paso, in 1965, singers were placed in a rather different light. At a time when post-war Christian conservatism held heavy influence over airplay in southern states, Cash was the exception that demolished the rule.
We return to Hogwarts where an ornate coach, powered by winged horses, descends from the sky, and a tall ship emerges from the water. Enter the Durmstrang Institute’s and Beauxbaton Academy’s finest, who have arrived to put forth their entrants for the coveted Triwizard Cup. The scene is staged perhaps as magnificently as the arrival of the …
While much of the story has been greatly condensed (the BBC mini-series covers the book verbatim) for the screen, there are expanses of deliciously witty exchanges that are mostly simple and straightforward, yet occasionally revealing of one’s character between the lines. For example, in a bedroom chat with her eldest sister, Jane (Rosamund Pike), Lizzie offers a telling criticism…
I think I should get this out of the way first… Is “Zathura,” based on the book by Chris Van Allsburg, a retread of “Jumanji,” also based on a book by Van Allsburg? Yes. Will kids care? Probably not. “Jumanji” is now ten years old, and few in the target audience for this film will have been barely able to remember its predecessor, if they were even born yet. Even if they were, kids have a propensity to adore recycled themes…
The film’s title, “Get Rich or Die Tryin’,” seems to have been ripped straight from the tagline of any number of “psyched up” music videos or basketball shoe commercials—all invented by white people sitting in the boardroom trying to think of ways to appeal to white, suburban youths’ stereotypes about black culture. The target audience for this film is so young, they…