In an opening shot, little Karen Aimes (Elle Peterson), is playing with a Barbie doll as a car pulls up to the house. At first, we see her mother, Josey (Charlize Theron), looking out the window. Then, the shot cuts to Josey cleaning blood off her face. The film gets right to the point: Josey has been beaten by her husband, which, we’ll discover is neither the first nor the last time men will take…
Maybe it’s because I was fixed upon intensely hating Truman Capote, as he is depicted in this film, or perhaps because I had just seen the crisp, ratiocinative Edward R. Murrow as portrayed in “Good Night and Good Luck” the night prior. “Capote” doesn’t strike me as nearly as interesting a film, and Truman Capote doesn’t…
“Stay,” directed by Marc Forster, is a bizarre and almost maddening film—in a good way. The movie begins as a tire blows out on a vehicle. It begins hurtling end over end down the length of the Brooklyn Bridge. Just as you’re trying to sort out what happened, time moves forward to a shot of Henry Letham (Ryan Gosling) sitting on the ground near the burning vehicle as sirens can be heard approaching…
There is a debate, which continues to this day, over whether journalists should center on reporting or editorializing the news. Edward R. Murrow’s answer was to editorialize, but defend one’s opinion armed with facts, “If what I say is responsible, I am the one who will be responsible for saying it.”
“As someone once said, there’s a difference between a failure and a fiasco,” says Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom). These words are spoken as truckloads of product are prepared for distribution. The product designer? Our Drew Baylor. He attends the product launch party, to be greeted by his would-be, soon to be had-been, girlfriend, Ellen Kishmore (Jessica Biel). She’s not there with good news. Instead….
I have a theory about British actors. They can walk into a mediocre American production and, by sheer will, and charismatic eloquence, seduce you into enjoying it. This film proves it. Note: I’m not saying this is a great film. Let it be said that I feel as though Tony Scott is a Michael Bay protége. He loves his slo-mo shots of helicopters and what Quentin Tarantino refers to as…
“You pay it back, the collar stays on. You don’t pay it back, the collar comes off,” says Uncle Bart (Bob Hoskins) to his indentured servant, Danny (Jet Li). Bart is your typical gangster in white—dangerous beyond reason or practicality. He keeps Danny on a leash, or a collar, rather, as a Pavlovian means of controlling Danny’s…
At one point in the film, my wife turns to me and notes why many women have a fascination with shoes. Women aren’t physically judged by their shoe size. It’s the one clothing item they can buy without being conscious of their figure. That wouldn’t have occurred to me, but then the film is based on a novel by Jennifer Weiner with a screenplay written by…