Thursday, December 23rd, 2010
Tron: Legacy
It being a Disney movie, the hero of Tron: Legacy never inserts his hard drive into his paramour’s sex drive; they don’t even cyber. If they had, they might have prompted an error message: The film is destined to produce computer-generated progeny of its own. That said, I actually kinda enjoyed this software saga; I’m [...]
2 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by elliott
Thursday, November 18th, 2010
Unstoppable
Like Depression-era bums, the director Tony Scott and his associates—late of The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3—keep on riding the rails. I think that they identify with the unionized railway workers in Unstoppable, whose job is to keep things running smoothly, and make sure that nothing goes off-track; these filmmakers are engineers rather than [...]
2 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by elliott
Thursday, September 9th, 2010
The American
With a frosty beard, George Clooney looks like Sean Connery. In sunglasses, he resembles my dad. (Weird, right?) But, in The American—scripted by Rowan Joffe from a Martin Booth novel, and directed by Anton Corbijn—he’s playing Steve McQueen. They may as well have cast McQueen, too—and made the movie while he was alive. It’s a [...]
4 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by elliott
Thursday, July 22nd, 2010
Inception
When Leonardo DiCaprio washed ashore at the beginning of Inception, I thought that Jack had survived the sinking of the Titanic. But if he had, it would only be to drown in the subconscious depths that this movie layers on. Don’t get me wrong: This new film, written and directed by Christopher Nolan, is artful [...]
5 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by elliott
Thursday, May 20th, 2010
Robin Hood
The Robin Hood legends give filmmakers a lot to shoot, but Ridley Scott is a rusty marksman. It’s an attempt to put a new spin on the myth: Robin Hood is a prequel to the glory days in the Sherwood Forest. But what’s the point of taking off from common knowledge if you’re going to [...]