Dialogue is wielded like a weapon in Parts Per Billion, a new film that follows three couples as they deal with the outbreak of a biological contagion that may mean The End of The World (the Apocalypse being one of those cinematic events that always merits capitalization). The weapon is not revealed by staccato machine gun bursts like the exchanges in David Mamet’s works. Nor do we find the stiletto switchblade conversations offered up by Quentin Tarantino in his series of Art House exploitation flicks. And certainly, no one will mistake what they hear in Parts Per Billion for the rapier duel of words that characterizes Noel Coward’s writing.
Archive for the ‘Drama’ Category
Parts Per Billion Review
Posted: June 9, 2014 in Drama, Reviews, Science FictionTags: Drama, Frank Langella, Gena Rowlands, Josh Hartnett, Rosario Dawson, Sci Fi, The End of the World
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God’s Pocket Review
Posted: June 5, 2014 in Drama, ReviewsTags: Christina Hendricks, Drama, John Slattery, John Turturro, Mad Men, Movies, Pete Dexter, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Richard Jenkins
Curiouser and curiouser.
Oddities abound in God’s Pocket, some deliberate, others not so much. This quirky first feature from director John Slattery (Rodger Sterling of AMC’s Mad Men) suffers from a series of questionable decisions. The result is a disappointing, small movie with a big-time cast. Large themes are reduced to petty actions, and elements of the mise-en-scène are so discordant that the setting, the action, the characters, and the soundtrack seem stitched together from very different films.
Locke Review
Posted: June 3, 2014 in Drama, ReviewsTags: Drama, It's A Wonderful Life, Kobayashi Maru, Movies, Ruth Wilson, Steven Knight, Tom Hardy
A man walks off a construction site at the end of the work day and gets into his car. He drives.
That is a full accounting of the action in Locke, one of the most original, intriguing and effective movies you are likely to see this year. Tom Hardy plays Ivan Locke, who over the course of a drive from one English city to another, shown more or less in real time, will put into effect a decision that will shatter his life.
Palo Alto Review
Posted: June 1, 2014 in Drama, ReviewsTags: Emma Roberts, Gia Coopola, James Franco, Movies, Nat Wolff, Palo Alto, Val Kilmer, Zoe Levin
The calendar shows June, and that’s way too early to declare a winner, but we certainly have a contender. When the list of worst films of 2014 is drawn up at the end of the year, save a spot on the short list for Palo Alto, a pretentious yet hollow selfie of a movie.
How bad is it? This film is the cinematic equivalent of finding a forgotten container in your refrigerator, opening it, and taking a whiff. Man, it stinks – here, smell it.
Shuttlecock Review
Posted: May 20, 2014 in Drama, Foreign, ReviewsTags: Blended Families, Korean films, Lee Yoo-Bin, Movies, Road Movies
Ah, the road movie.
Disparate characters somehow wind up in a car or a bus or a plane, a train, or an automobile. They fight. They bond. They fight some more. Inevitably, they find themselves on the side of the road, in the middle of nowhere, seemingly without the means to go on. And that’s when the realization comes over them them. The trip was never about the destination. It was always about the journey.
And – gasp – they find out that they needed to get away from everything to discover each other or themselves or the big beautiful country or whatever.
Arrrgghh, the road movie.
Under The Skin Review
Posted: May 16, 2014 in Drama, Reviews, Science FictionTags: Jonathan Glazer, Movies, Scarlett Johansson, Science Fiction, The Man Who Fell To Earth
One day soon, Scarlett Johansson will be regarded as the most important female performer in cinema. That is not say that she will ever hold the title of best living actress. Even after Meryl Strep passes, there will always be a middle-aged British woman that sets the critics to full swoon through the portrayal of a royal, either dead or alive. Johansson will occupy a different position all together. She is now our premiere thespian goddess, the woman who can enthrall legions of fan boys in a comic book flick, then turn around and dominate a smaller, “serious” film.
Filth Review
Posted: May 4, 2014 in Comedy, Drama, ReviewsTags: Comedy, Edinburgh, James McAvoy, Jim Broadbent, Jon S. Baird, Movies, Psychodrama, Scotland, Shauna Macdonald, Terry Gilliam
So what are we to make of Filth? Is it a comedy as advertised, a crime pic focused on a murder investigation, or a drama about one man’s inner demons?
There are parts within the first stretch that are howlingly funny, and the movie starts as if it will earn a place as a paragon of bad taste alongside such entries as South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, Bad Santa, and Ted. James McAvoy portrays Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson as if he were Denzel Washington in an uproarious redo of Training Day. Robertson’s the type that will coerce a minor into sex and then criticize her technique. He’s after a promotion to Inspector, and he handicaps his competition on the Edinburgh police force for the audience with the odds flashing up in a graphic on screen after he verbally skews each of them.
Boyhood Review
Posted: April 27, 2014 in 2014 Berlinale, Drama, ReviewsTags: Berlinale, Coming of Age, Ethan Hawke, Movies, Patricia Arquette, Richard Linklater
It is a gimmick, and one could argue that it is not even original.
Since 1964, 14 British schoolchildren have been followed by documentary filmmakers who have presented their findings every seven years in the so-called Up Series with the titles matching the age of the participants (7 Up, 14 Up, etc.). Still, it may be unprecedented for a feature filmmaker to take the same approach, but that is what Richard Linklater did. Beginning in 2002, and continuing over the next 12 years, Linklater brought together the same core group of actors for a few days of filming with the intent to put together a movie on growing up, which, in fact, was the working title for most of the 12 years.
Sin-ui Seon-mul (Godsend) Review
Posted: April 26, 2014 in Drama, Foreign, ReviewsTags: Jeon Soo-jin, Ki-duk Kim, Korean films, Lee Eun-woo, Moon Si-Hyun, Movies, Rape
The treatment of rape in the arts – particularly the visual portrayal of the incident and its aftermath in movies and television – remains controversial though not taboo. In the most recently completed season of the British soap opera, Downton Abbey, fan favorite Anna was assaulted, and viewers did not respond well. Most believed it a cheap plot device that was not justified by the subsequent direction of the story or treatment of the characters involved. The same criticisms also apply to Sin-ui Seon-mul (Godsend), the new film from Korean director Moon Si-Hyun. Midway through the film, the narrative is derailed by a violent and artistically indefensible act that undercuts the good will that the director and her actresses have established to that point. The story does not recover, but instead lurches through a series of increasingly difficult and preposterous moments before finishing with a cloying, unsatisfying sequence.
Enemy Review
Posted: March 31, 2014 in Drama, Reviews, Science FictionTags: Denis Villeneuve, doppelganger, Existentialism, Jake Gyllenhaal, Movies
If you like blueberries, would your doppelganger like them as well?
If your wife is blonde, would your doppelganger’s girlfriend also be blonde?
If you had a doppelganger, which of you would be the evil one?
Who am you? Who are I?
These are the questions asked, but not answered in director Denis Villeneuve’s and screenwriter Javier Gullón’s new feature, Enemy. In order of appearance, Jake Gyllenhaal stars as history teacher Adam Hall and actor Anthony St. Claire, two men of no seeming significance outside of their circles of friends and acquaintances and no apparent relation beyond an uncanny resemblance.
Meet Mr. Karma 