Thursday, October 13th, 2011
The Ides of March
What if George Clooney really parlayed his star power into the sphere of politics? Would the opposing parties occupying Wall Street both decamp? Or would the dreamboat be swift-boated for sinking the ship in The Perfect Storm faster than Bill O’Reilly can cry “Hollywood élite”? (The star’s already been bested at the box-office by the [...]
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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 [...]
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Thursday, December 30th, 2010
Black Swan
Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler was near-great. It may have been diffuse around the edges, but it had Mickey Rourke for its beating heart—and Marisa Tomei just out of his reach. Released to theaters between President Obama’s election and inauguration—and on the heels of the economic crunch—it gave an “ordinary” American workingman the chance to do [...]
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Thursday, July 29th, 2010
Cyrus
Two of the biggest craniums in cinema are at loggerheads in Cyrus. They belong to John (John C. Reilly), a ringer for Shrek, and the eponymous man-child played by Jonah Hill, whose submerged neck forms a halo—like the frame around a medieval portrait of a saint. But, like the painted saints of way-back-when, there’s something [...]
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Monday, February 23rd, 2009
The Wrestler
The Wrestler is a true champ—in part because the screenwriter, Robert D. Siegel, and the director, Darren Aronofsky, never go for the knock-out. Instead, they’ve made a beautifully lean picture, austere enough that its moments of sentimentality drizzle like raindrops, and never cascade. This story, which tells of one man’s downfall, is so simple and [...]