Go see Battle: Los Angeles for the compelling point-of-view and good action. Stay home if you're looking for a science-fiction study.
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Speaking of that theology and deeper tones, the religious symbolism and non-specific labels that are created to define guardians, angels, deities, fate, and chance will no doubt strike internal thought and external discussion and debate about what you think happens in real life with The Adjustment Bureau's themes. Because of that, it's a fascinating movie that, much like Matt Damon's last movie Hereafter and it musings and symbolism of the afterlife from Clint Eastwood, won't completely move you to pieces, but stick in your head enough to really make you think afterwards. Those are fun movie experiences.
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From the John Wayne-level vistas and cinematography, the High Noon showdowns and action, to the Sergio Leone theatrics, music style, and villains, film fans with like what they see. So, from a cinematic standpoint Rango really and unexpectedly works. It's edgy, unique, and a great western. However, parents expecting cute and cuddly will not. The movie is too slow and quirky for most kids, and even some adults.
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I recently wrote a multi-chapter editorial on the elusive "guy-cry" movie, just in time for Valentine's Day. Springing off conversations I've had with friends and inspired by Tom Hank's Dirty Dozen retort to An Affair to Remember in Sleepless in Seattle, I compiled a categorized list of movies that make us men tear up and blubber like babies.
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I was recently swept up in a conversation about when, as a man, I've ever cried at a movie. I happily admitted that I'm a softy and have cried at plenty of movies, but still draw the line for some that are supposed to make us men cry. It got me to asking my friends, doing some thinking, and digging up some research on this much-debated topic of what makes for a good "guy-cry" movie.
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The Green Hornet is very sloppy from top to bottom and beginning to end. The parts just don't fit together. You can tip the hat for Sony trying something different with Gondry and Rogan, but it doesn't work. Both aren't suited to action, pulp, or comedy.
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The daringly original new film Black Swan, from director Darren Aronofsky, is the cinematic embodiment of answering that figurative expression and that twist of choosing what you see in the mirror. It's a twisted psychological thriller where nothing is what it seems, all the way until the credits roll. The film's slow-boiling pull on you, the audience, builds more and more with a pace and tension that matches the maddening breakdowns of its lead character.
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Those two time periods and settings of Blue Valentine create Oscar-worthy opportunities for Gosling and Williams to give absolutely amazing dual performances. Their chemistry as actors to create both loving attraction in the past and boiled-over stress in the present is remarkable. Both of them completely pull off every possible level of married realism in the present-day scenes that, when we see them in their past years, we hardly believe they could be the same people, let alone the same actors.
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The King's Speech tells this very personal story of therapy and friendship in such an exquisitely grand and fulfilling way.
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The Fighter is as much a dramatic and fascinating character piece about family as it is about boxing. The complicated and very different layers of relationship between parents and children, siblings, and family outsiders drives the film
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True Grit joins the short list of remakes that could be superior to their original. Though it may not be completely fair or right to compare the two and their 41-year-old differences, it's impossible not to watch the new one without recalling its predecessor. There are many elements of the new adaptation that are superior to the 1969 original.
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It's refreshing to see Tangled. It marks the occasion as Disney's historic 50th animated feature. The fun film, much like Disney's recent Enchanted, turns out to be a Hallmark card to their time-honored classic fairy tale storytelling, while still having modern dashes of flavor and wonder to appeal to the new 21st century generation. The old fashioned ingredients are in place.
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