Melancholia is not your your typical science-fiction drama or even a typical family drama. With Lars Von Trier and his track record (Europa, Dogville, Antichrist), we shouldn't be surprised. It's essentially a wedding movie about two very different, yet equally damaged sisters, but it has a lot more going on. What's going on exactly? Well, it's a little foggy and full of issues.
Read More50/50 will have you packing your tissue box to wipe away both tears of sorrow and tears of laughter. It's more than a numbers game, though, in balancing humor with drama. It's not about adding up equal parts. It's about timing your jokes to fall in dramatic places when you need them and in funny places where they work like magic.
Read MoreThrough Pitt’s performance, Moneyball has that outstanding character study that all great sports movies have to have. In a way, Moneyball feels like Jerry Maguire without the romantic comedy, where the smoothly-written business side of a sport trumps the game and players on the field. For those looking for a sports movie with a brain, that will impress you and spark your interest. If you need thrills and camaraderie, you're going to have to look somewhere else.
Read MoreCrazy, Stupid, Love. is not divorce drama like Kramer Vs. Kramer. You're not watching courtroom proceedings and messy custody battles. Crazy, Stupid, Love. is bigger than that and so much more. It's about personal reinvention, mentoring, courtship, fighting for love, and the idea of soulmates. It's incredibly fresh, funny, emotional, daring, and, for a romantic "dramedy," has more jaw-dropping twists than big budget thrillers.
Read MoreThe Captain America character stirs your patriotism in the audience as a guy you really root for to save the day and get the girl. For all that, Captain America: The First Avenger is, far and away, the best comic book movie this summer and acts as an outstanding final springboard piece to Marvel's mega-event Avengers team-up next May.
Read MoreBeyond all that, the real progress that made the movie series tick is the dual-growth of Harry, Hermione, Ron, and the three actors that played them. The classic aspects of teenage coming-of-age storytelling have always been present in the Harry Potter series, but on two distinct fronts. As the characters, they have grown to find their skill, importance, and desires as to what really matters in the grand scheme of all that has transpired around them. As actors, Radcliffe, Watson, and Grint have gone from unknown cute-faced children playing borderline stereotypes to mature and capable performers we genuinely care about and root for through this decade within their characters' shoes and robes.
Read MoreUnlike those last four Pixar movies, Cars 2 is not trying to be taken seriously and shouldn't be put on that pedestal.
Read MoreThe popular trend lately (Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight) has been to create comic book movies that tone down the superpowers and focus on the realistic qualities and plausibility of human heroes capable of existing in our real world. Thor, unapologetically, does the absolute opposite. It's a grand, epic, and galaxy-bending display of gods among men. Never before has a superhero movie been so, well, super in its scope and size, yet still leaving room for a little dose of humanity.
Read MoreThe new film Country Strong hopes to continue that tradition by stealing a few pages from real-life comeback stories and making its own. Add one part Britney Spears (of which the movie was actually inspired by, in fact), one part Mindy McCready, and a few dashes of Johnny Cash and Tina Turner and you've got country star Kelly Canter, played by Academy Award winner Gwyneth Paltrow.
Read MoreCall it the human condition or whatever you like. Everyone handles death differently and everyone copes with it differently in very distinctive and personal ways. In any case, because of those strong personal differences, it is very tough to make a populist, wide-reaching movie about it that everyone can snuggle up together and identify with. If anyone has the chops to try, it's the great Clint Eastwood with Hereafter. His newest film follows three parallel stories, each in different countries, of three people affected by death in dramatically different ways.
Read MoreInception may go down as his masterpiece someday, with its ability to take such a huge, wild, and suspenseful concept and pace it was such a deeply affecting emotional story. The powerful relationship between DiCaprio and Cotillard successfully overcomes the heist action to great effectiveness. Between Inception and his continuing work with Martin Scorsese (Gangs of New York, The Aviator, The Departed, and Shutter Island earlier this year), DiCaprio is building an impressive resume of compelling psychological performances. He hasn't been that teen heartthrob from Growing Pains, Romeo + Juliet, and Titanic for a long time and it's time for people to take notice, because he might be the best young actor working today.
Read MoreIron Man 2 is exactly what's it's supposed to be. It's a glossy big-budget sequel that delivers a continuing post-origin story. While it's not chapter-and-verse based on any comic story and takes a lot of liberties, Iron Man 2 is an undeniably fun piece of comic and summer entertainment.
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