Thursday, December 29th, 2011
The Descendants
The Descendants is an escape to the ordinary. Alexander Payne’s first feature since Sideways is also his second since leaving Nebraska; it proves afresh that you can take the director out of Omaha, but you can’t take Omaha out of the director. At least that’s the message encoded in the opening monologue—one I was happy [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by elliott
Thursday, August 11th, 2011
Crazy, Stupid, Love
If you can accept the pretense that Steve Carell would be married to Julianne Moore; that law-student Emma Stone is pre-engaged to Josh Groban (pretty awesome casting, actually); that Moore would cheat on Carell with Kevin Bacon; that that dissolves their marriage; that said marriage would produce a mind-numbingly precocious son, that species of old-soul [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in Uncategorized by elliott
Thursday, June 30th, 2011
Super 8
J. J. Abrams has what’s good in Steven Spielberg, and he has what’s bad, but he doesn’t have what’s great. It’s been groaned to death that Super 8 is an imitation of early Spielberg; what seems to be missing is the once obvious fact that Spielberg was, in his more skillful way, also strip-mining childhood [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by elliott
Thursday, May 12th, 2011
Win Win
When was it decided that wrestling was a sign of sensitivity? It was implied that the troubled teen of The Kids Are All Right might be sending his brah a love letter every time he held him in a headlock. Now, in Win Win, in defiance of the sum of modern hyperconsciousness—and codes that have [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by elliott
Thursday, April 7th, 2011
Sucker Punch
The beer in my gut from before I hit Sucker Punch doesn’t preclude me from knowing what the film was about; I only wish it did. The trailer had me fooled that maybe Zack Snyder, directing his own material for the first time, had gone ballistic in a redeemable, wacko-Zacko way. I’ve successfully evaded his [...]