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Reviews

Film Review: "Rush"

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Friday, 27 September 2013 17:50; Written by Matt Oakes

"Rush"
Directed by Ron Howard
Starring Chris Hemsworth, Daniel Brühl, Olivia Wilde, Alexandra Maria Lara, Pierfrancesco Favino, David Calder
Action, Biography, Drama
123 Mins
R

With any Ron Howard movie, we expect a degree of excellence as much as we expect an old-timey feel and some dated-sounding dialogue. With Rush, Howard delivers on those expectations but manages to get out of his own way more often than he has recently, a fact for which we can all be grateful.

Telling the true story of two rivals battling over a championship title in the 1976 Formula One racing world, Howard has harnessed magic by pitch-perfectly casting Chris Hemsworth (Thor) and Daniel Brühl (Inglorious Basterds) as James Hunt and Niki Lauda. While both embody a character, lifestyle, and mythos, Brühl brings Lauda to life with unrestrained commitment - a role that he is likely to walk away from with a Best Supporting Actor nomination at next year's Oscar ceremony.

Film Review: "Baggage Claim"

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Friday, 27 September 2013 12:10; Written by Evan Pearson

“Baggage Claim”
Directed by David E. Talbert
Starring Paula Patton, Derek Luke, Taye Diggs, Jill Scott, Boris Kodjoe, Adam Brody, Jennifer Lewis, Tia Mowry-Hardrict, Affion Crockett
Comedy
96 Mins
PG-13

Many movies fishing for broadest appeal follow a basic formula: no high concepts, transparent plotlines, and shallow character work with the bonus of mass reliability, a few laughs, and a happy ending – in a word: junk food. Baggage Claim, written and directed by playwright David E. Talbert, is more junk food.

There are many flimsy premises at play here which the audience has to accept if they want to follow the plot at all, however unlikely and thrown together it may be. There are scattered laughs, a love story, and that coveted happy ending, but they are hardly enough to cover up the potholes in both plot and message. Where Baggage Claim should take a stand, it dithers; where it should be a breath of fresh air, it’s derivative and stale.

Film Review: "Don Jon"

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Friday, 27 September 2013 00:31; Written by Matt Oakes

"Don Jon"
Directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Scarlett Johansson, Tony Danza, Glenne Headly, Julianne Moore, Brie Larson
Comedy, Drama
90 Mins
R

"Porn ruins men's expectations of sex," say the sociologists of the internet-age, and young men who've grown up under the hypnotic spell of pornography can attest to this exclusively 21st-century tenant. By transforming an act of sensuality into a tour-de-force of sexual servitude and masochistic submissiveness, ideals of what it is to love and to make love become twisted into fantastical situations of serendipitous carnal urges, extreme sexual openness, and immediate, detached subservience. Don Jon - so known for his record-breaking "scoring" streak with the opposite sex - is a man bottle-fed on the objectification oozing from pornography whose ideals of a woman is one that can be accessed with a push of a button and left with the slam of a laptop.

As the porn-obsessed Jon, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a revelation. Until now, he's been the cute geek, harvesting the hearts of women in films like (500) Days of Summer and winning the goodwill of men with straight-laced roles in films like Inception, Looper and The Dark Knight Rises. We've come to expect JGL to play the nice, moral guy (save for his brash and ill-tempered antihero in Hesher), which is why his aloof meathead in Don Jon is such a perfect role for him. Channeling the beefy bravado of a Jersey Shore local, Levitt's Jon isn't the brightest of the bunch and he certainly is a bit of a despicable fella. Many of his lesser qualities, we soon learn, can be placed at the feet of his equally trashy parents and their less-than-enviable upbringing tactics.

Film Review: "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2"

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Friday, 27 September 2013 00:26; Written by Matt Oakes

"Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2"
Directed by Cody Cameron, Kris Pearn
Starring Bill Hader, Anna Faris, James Caan, Will Forte, Andy Sanberg, Benjamin Bratt, Neill Patrick Harris, Terry Crews, Kristen Schaal
Animation, Comedy, Family
95 Mins
PG

Behind the frothy purple food clouds and impeccably realized spaghetti-and-meatballs tornado, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs stood out of the crowd with pithy one-liners and a boldly farcical approach to an animated film. While there was plenty for everyone - with crisp animation and action beats keeping the kiddies thoroughly involved - many of the jokes seemed aimed directly at the 18-and-over crowd. In a lot of ways, it wasn't a "kids" movie at all - it was a sharp comedy masquerading as a family feature.

It's cast patched together from SNL greats alongside a host of smart casting choices such as Anna Faris, James Caan, and Bruce Campbell, there was a rich palette of vocal iconography at play that helped bring to life the emotional gravitas beneath the quick-firing zingers. Though perhaps not everyone's cup of tea, this first installment amply folded bouts of comedy, artistry, and just enough emotional oomph to dish up a surprisingly delicious product, while Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 just crams all the scraps in a blender and serves up that breed of casserole that everyone knows is made exclusively from leftovers.

Reviews

Film Review: "Rush"

Film Review: "Baggage Claim"

Film Review: "Don Jon"

Film Review: "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2"

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