04.20.08
Posted in indie, comedy, drama, reviews at 12:41 pm by FilmFemme
Apparently people that give titles to movies don’t actually want people to see the movies that they are titling. Because, let’s face it, even a smart person doesn’t want to see a movie called Smart People. As a matter of fact, I’m going to contend that the smarter you are, the more you hate smart people. All of this points to the fact that I am actually not as smart as I think I am because not only did I go see this movie, but I enjoyed it.
Dennis Quaid is Lawrence Wetherhold, an English professor at Carnegie Mellon. Ah, movies about professors. Thank god, I was starting to think there would never be another one. Oh, except for the last movie that I reviewed on this site. Anyway. He’s very curmudgeonly. He hates all his students. His son hates him. His daughter (Ellen Page) does her best to emulate him (except for some reason she’s a Republican) and he still carries a torch for his dead wife.
But one day all of that changes!! ZOMG!!
He has a seizure while he’s trying to get his car out of the impound and ends up the ER where his doctor is Sarah Jessica Parker on the same day that his deadbeat brother (Thomas Haden Church) moves in unannounced, unexpected and uninvited.
The quirky family story that follows hardly breaks new ground, but the expectedly adequate (and at times amazing) performances and solid writing make Smart People completely watchable and generally enjoyable.
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04.17.08
Posted in drama, reviews at 1:15 pm by FilmFemme
(This review has spoilers. Let’s face it, no one is going to see this movie anyway.)
Do you like M. Night Shymalan movies (”no!”), but you really wish that the twist was spoiled RIGHT AWAY? Like IN THE TITLE? Then Vadim Perelman’s The Life Before Her Eyes is the perfect springtime movie for you!
At the beginning of the movie, Evan Rachel Wood is a 16 year old Diana. She is young, ridiculously hot, carefree, rebellious and confused about what direction her life is taking her in. We immediately see her become BFF with Maureen (Eva Amurri) even though Diana is kind of a slut and Maureen is kind of a goody goody (but she has huge tits, so it’s A-OK). Early on - like within the first 10 minutes, I think - the pair is confronted with a crisis: there is a school shooting at their high school and they find themselves face to face with the killer (played with hyperventilating stoicism by Adam Chanler-Berat [don’t people use stage names anymore? jeez]). This is the linchpin of the rest of the story as we’re then taken into the future where Diana lives peacefully with her professor husband and her daughter Emma, teaching art history to high schoolers and trying to keep the pretty, smart ones from being sluts like she was. Peacefully but for the traumatic flashbacks she suffers as well and the paranoid delusions that ultimately get her hit by a Mack truck (or maybe it’s a bus). Yeah, real peaceful.
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04.07.08
Posted in obituaries, industry news at 7:46 am by FilmFemme
I don’t have much to say about the death of Charlton Heston. Should I be sad? The guy was pretty old. I’m also embarrassed to admit that I haven’t seen very many of his most famous films, including Ben-Hur, Planet of the Apes and The Ten Commandments (apart from bits and pieces every Easter…actually, that’s often the only thing that reminds me it’s Easter at all). So, his screentime that is most memorable to me is his interview in Bowling for Columbine and as you may know, that was not a very flattering portrayal. Also, did he have Alzheimer’s or what? I wonder if he thought people with Alzheimer’s should be allowed to have guns, too. Quite a dilemma, Charlie. Anyway, I mostly just wanted to use my “Obituaries” category. So, here’s hoping they let you take your guns to heaven (please note that I did not make a “from his cold dead hands” joke anywhere. But it wasn’t because I didn’t want to.)
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04.02.08
Posted in family, reviews at 6:24 pm by FilmFemme
There are remakes that are done for the right reason - that truly bring something new and different - a new perspective or a new twist - to the table that is cinema. Nim’s Island does none of these things. But the real tragedy is that it’s not even a remake.
Nim Rusoe (Abigail Breslin) is an 11 year old girl who lives on a remote island with her scientist/widower father, Jack (Gerard Butler). One suspiciously sunny day, Jack is scheduled to go on a sea expedition and Nim refuses to go along, insisting she stay alone on the island and help hatch the sea turtle’s eggs. With an ominous “See you in two days,” Jack sets out to sea. The first night Jack is gone, a storm hits! Deceptively plucky Nim survives it just fine, but Jack is not so lucky and gets stranded at sea. Nim’s only hope for survival (not to mention to save her island from rowdy, drunken, uncouth and overweight Americ…I mean, Australian tourists) is Nim’s favorite adventurer on paper, one Alex Rover. But Nim doesn’t know that the rugged and courageous Alex is actually a creation of obsessive compulsive San Fransican Alexandra Rover (Jodie Foster) who has been emailing Jack for help with her latest book. Despite her fears, neuroses and tightly wound urbanity, Alexandra decides to track down Nim and help her. What follows (and, to be fair, what precedes) is a jumbled, predictable, uneven, hypersentimental mess that leaves a smudge across Jodie Foster’s Oscars more noticeable than her impossibly toned legs.
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