"Unfinished Song"
Directed by Paul Andrew Williams
Starring Terrence Stamp, Vanessa Redgrave, Gemma Arteton, Christopher Eccleston, Orla Hill
Comedy, Drama, Music
93 Mins
PG-13
Piggybacking on the recent success of films skewing towards retirees, Unfinished Song is an unabashed play towards the tissue box. The tear-jerking gimmicks are all there; a bout of cancer, strained familial relationships, death in the family and heartfelt serenades; but Terence Stamp doesn't allow weepy schmaltz to drag his character down the maudlin road and drown in a glittery polish. Rather, Stamp gives it everything he's got and puts in one of the finer performances of his career. The pity is that his standout performance is surrounded by a film that just isn't very good.
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Reviews
July '13 Digital Week I
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Tuesday, 09 July 2013 02:01
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
Inescapable
(IFC)
Ruba Nadda’s tidy thriller follows a father returning to Damascus—which he left a quarter century earlier for a new life in Toronto—to find his missing adult daughter, aided by a Canadian embassy rep who knows her (there’s a good moment when they have to identify a body and the emissary says it’s not her because the corpse doesn’t have a tattoo “where a father can’t see it”).
Film Review: "Despicable Me 2"
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Monday, 08 July 2013 15:23
- Written by Matt Oakes
"Despicable Me 2"
Directed by Pierre Coffin, Chris Renaud
Starring Steve Carrell, Kristen Wiig, Benjamin Bratt, Russell Brand, Miranda Cosgrove, Moises Arias, Elsie Kate Fisher, Ken Jeong, Steve Coogan
Animation, Comedy, Crime
98 Mins
PG
It's hard to muster any more than a "meh" for Dreamwork's latest animated pic as Despicable Me 2 has accomplished very little. Capitalizing on ripe affection for the first entry, this follow-up falls deep into the sophomore slump...even though it's destined to earn one metric boatload of money. But rather than earning the sequel through must-be-told storytelling, this is a requisite afterthought - a blueprinted follow-through. Any semblance of inspired innovation is lacking and sidelined is the one element that gave the franchise launcher such unexpected heart - Gru's relationship with the girls. Shifting to a romantic plot and a moral re-alignment for Gru leaves this animated flick bland and over-reliant on color-by-numbers plot points punctuated with mindless slapstick gags.
Film Review: "Unfinished Song"
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Friday, 05 July 2013 14:14
- Written by Matt Oakes
Film Review: "The Lone Ranger"
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Tuesday, 02 July 2013 02:46
- Written by Matt Oakes
"The Lone Ranger"
Directed by Gore Verbinski
Starring Armie Hammer, Johnny Depp, William Fichtner, Ruth Wilson, Helena Bonham Carter, Tom Wilkinson, James Badge Dale, Barry Pepper, Mason Cook
Action, Adventure, Western
149 Mins
PG-13
Directed by Gore Verbinski
Starring Armie Hammer, Johnny Depp, William Fichtner, Ruth Wilson, Helena Bonham Carter, Tom Wilkinson, James Badge Dale, Barry Pepper, Mason Cook
Action, Adventure, Western
149 Mins
PG-13
One of the many problems The Lone Ranger faces is that it doesn't feel modern. The Wild West that audiences have begun to again embrace with films like True Grit and Django Unchained thrive not because of their niche western setting but because of their steadily unique voice. In a genre where everything has been done before, they divided and conquered simply by doing something audiences haven't seen before.
In The Lone Ranger, everything feels retread, tired, and ready to boot. As a winking tribute of sorts, it works to an extent, but tonally it's stretched like an old rubber band ready to snap. The souring riff on the noble savage, played with tone-deaf readiness by Hollywood's favorite eccentric, Johnny Depp, is off-putting, head-scratching, mildly offensive and entirely dated. The kitschy elements of the 1930s icon could have been celebrated and preserved, even in light of a modernized overhaul, but instead director Gore Verbinski and go-to cohort Johnny Depp have gone for broke and come up with bags of sand.
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