Into the Woods (2014)
DIRECTOR: Rob Marshall
CAST: Meryl Streep, Anna Kendrick, James Corden, Emily Blunt, Daniel Huttlestone, Lilla Crawford, Mackenzie Mauzy, Chris Pine, Billy Magnussen, Tracey Ullman, Christine Baranski, Johnny Depp
REVIEW:
Into the Woods doesn’t make the journey worth taking. Perhaps part of the blame lies with Disney neutering Stephen Sondheim’s original play, a dark-edged satire of classic fairy tales, toning down darker and more sexually suggestive moments in the name of “family friendliness”, but the generic musical numbers, with nary a catchy tune to be found (just compare it to the list of memorable songs in, say, Les Miserables) aren’t a promising advertisement for Sondheim’s original material either. Satire only fully works when it’s a razor-sharp, incisive blade. Whether or not the fault lies with Disney softening its edges, the movie adaptation of Sondheim’s play is a dull butter knife. Continue reading
Selma (2014)
DIRECTOR: Ava DuVernay
CAST: David Oyelowo, Tom Wilkinson, Carmen Ejogo, Tim Roth, Oprah Winfrey, Giovanni Ribisi, Cuba Gooding Jr., Martin Sheen
REVIEW:
An uneven but sporadically stirring slice of a turbulent period in American history, Selma does not quite achieve the greatness it reaches for as a film, but serves as an important historical document chronicling events beginning in January 1965 in Selma, Alabama and climaxing with Martin Luther King Jr.’s march to Montgomery and President Lyndon Johnson’s passage of the Voting Rights Act. Given recent events in the news, Selma feels more timely than ever, and can inspire both reflection on dark aspects of America’s past, and a questioning of how far we’ve truly come. Continue reading
Unbroken (2014)
![UNBROKEN [Movie Review]](https://i1.wp.com/simplyvinnie.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/150322unbroken.jpg?resize=600%2C300&ssl=1)
DIRECTOR: Angelina Jolie
CAST: Jack O’Connell, Domhnall Gleeson, Finn Wittrock, Garrett Hedlund, Jai Courtney, Miyavi
REVIEW:
Unbroken, Angelina Jolie’s second time in the director’s chair (following 2011’s In the Land of Blood and Honey), is a good-but-not-great docudrama adapted from the same-named non-fiction book by Lauren Hillenbrand (author of the less harrowing but similarly earnest and “inspiring true story” Seabiscuit) telling in competent but somewhat unremarkable fashion the true story of Olympic athlete and WWII POW Louis Zamperini.
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