Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007)
DIRECTOR: Shekhar Kapur
CAST: Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush, Clive Owen, Abbie Cornish
REVIEW:
Shekhar Kapur’s sequel to his 1998 lavish historical costume drama Elizabeth, despite reuniting the director, screenwriter Michael Hirst, and stars Cate Blanchett and Geoffrey Rush, is an example of a sequel being, if not a precipitous drop, at least a downgrade from its predecessor. Elizabeth: The Golden Age, while including some rousing moments, too often feels more like a lavish costume soap opera than the intrigue potboiler of its predecessor.
Continue readingZodiac (2007)
DIRECTOR: David Fincher
CAST: Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., Anthony Edwards, Chloe Sevigny, Brian Cox, Elias Koteas, Dermot Mulroney, Philip Baker Hall, John Carroll Lynch
REVIEW:
While it tells the true unsolved story of one of America’s most notorious serial killers–at least that which is publicly known–Zodiac is not a thriller, at least not in a conventional sense. Rather, it’s a police procedural and docudrama. Based on a true crime book by Robert Graysmith, it puts the focus not on Zodiac himself, who remains a shadowy, elusive, nameless and faceless figure (although the movie’s viewpoint, like Graysmith’s, is blatantly slanted toward one suspect), but on the men (including Graysmith himself) who were involved in the long-running, ultimately fruitless manhunt. To this end, Zodiac is a bit like a souped-up, two-and-a-half hour episode of Law & Order, and will appeal to some of the same audience fascinated by the details of police procedure and investigating. It depicts the above with slick polish and is often intriguing, but an uneven pace and the inevitable open ending will frustrate some viewers not strongly interested in the subject matter. Continue reading
The Good German (2006)
DIRECTOR: Steven Soderbergh
CAST:
George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, Tobey Maguire, Beau Bridges, Jack Thompson,Ravil Isyanov, Tony Curran, Christian Oliver, Leland Orser
REVIEW:
The Good German is director Steven Soderbergh’s (Traffic, Ocean’s Eleven) adaptation of Joseph Kanon’s 2001 novel, but Soderbergh chose not to simply do a straightforward filming of Kanon’s book, but used it as his chance to attempt a film experiment of his own- making the movie, set in 1945, as if it had actually been made in the 1940s. Continue reading
The Prestige (2006)
DIRECTOR: Christopher Nolan
CAST:
Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Scarlett Johansson, Michael Caine, Rebecca Hall, David Bowie, Andy Serkis, Piper Perabo
REVIEW:
Director Christopher Nolan and his brother, screenwriter Jonathan Nolan, share not only obvious intelligence, but a fondness for complex plotlines. Continue reading
The Illusionist (2006)
DIRECTOR: Neil Burger
CAST:
Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti, Jessica Biel, Rufus Sewell
REVIEW:
The Illusionist is the kind of low-key, independent, art house fare that often gets lost in the shuffle among the action flicks and romantic comedies, which is kind of a shame, because while it aims to be fairly lightweight entertainment, isn’t anything terribly ambitious, The Illusionist is a lot of fun- a pleasant, enjoyable brew of romance, mystery, and magic. Continue reading
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
DIRECTOR: Ang Lee
CAST: Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway, Randy Quaid
REVIEW:
While the comparison might not occur to everyone, Brokeback Mountain (adapted from a 1997 short story of the same name by Annie Proulx, with the movie screenplay written by Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry) is a spiritual cousin to such films as Witness, Bridges of Madison County, and The Remains of the Day. All four films, while depicting characters living very different lives in different times and places, are at their core about the longing between two people who are unable or unwilling to bridge the gulf that separates them. Obviously, the distinguishing factor setting Brokeback Mountain apart is that its forbidden love affair, unlike the above films, is between two men, and while the homosexual aspect will make some viewers uncomfortable, to pigeonhole it as a “gay cowboy movie”, as some have dismissively done, is a disservice and an oversimplification. The complexity of the characters’ dynamics defy such easy labels. Continue reading
Pride & Prejudice (2005)
DIRECTOR: Joe Wright
CAST: Keira Knightley, Matthew Macfadyen, Rosamund Pike, Brenda Blethyn, Donald Sutherland, Simon Woods, Tom Hollander, Jena Malone, Carey Mulligan, Talulah Riley, Judi Dench, Kelly Reilly, Rupert Friend
REVIEW:
While some will still consider the three-hour 1995 TV miniseries (starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth) to be the definitive onscreen adaptation of Jane Austen’s 1813 novel, Joe Wright and screenwriter Deborah Moggach (and uncredited script doctor Emma Thompson, who starred in Ang Lee’s 1995 adaptation of Austen’s Sense & Sensibility) have done about as good of a job as anyone could expect of adapting the dense material into a two hour format. While various subplots and supporting characters have been condensed, Pride & Prejudice remains a handsome and lively adaptation that sacrifices neither the story’s core themes and heart, nor the central romance.
Continue readingThe Proposition (2005)
DIRECTOR: John Hillcoat
CAST: Guy Pearce, Ray Winstone, Danny Huston, Emily Watson, David Wenham, John Hurt
REVIEW:
With The Proposition, Australian director John Hillcoat and screenwriter/composer Nick Cave have taken the saying “revenge is a dish best served cold” and taken it up—or down, depending on one’s perspective—a notch. The Proposition is considered an unconventional Western, but it doesn’t deal in clear-cut black hats and white hats or simple shoot-em-ups. Brutal, unromanticized, and mercilessly gritty to the point of being disturbing, it’s a grim, haunting odyssey that doesn’t deal in typical crowd-pleasing Western tropes and conventions, at least not straightforwardly.
Continue readingKingdom of Heaven (2005)
DIRECTOR: Ridley Scott
CAST: Orlando Bloom, Eva Green, Jeremy Irons, Marton Csokas, Brendan Gleeson, Liam Neeson, Ghassan Massoud, Alexander Siddig, David Thewlis, Michael Sheen, John Finch, Edward Norton
REVIEW:
In a number of his previous films, Ridley Scott has proven he knows how to make an epic. With its desert landscape and ancient setting, Kingdom of Heaven bears the closest resemblance to 2000’s Oscar-winning Gladiator, but in some ways is an even more technically ambitious production. Unfortunately, it’s a far less engaging motion picture. Continue reading
Max (2002)
DIRECTOR: Menno Meyjes
CAST: John Cusack, Noah Taylor, Ulrich Thomsen, Molly Parker, Leelee Sobieski, Peter Capaldi, Kevin McKidd
REVIEW:
The unimpressively—and somewhat misleadingly—titled Max, the directorial debut of Dutch writer-director Menno Meyjes, is speculative historical fiction postulating the unlikely friendship—of sorts—between a (fictional) Jewish art dealer and a young Adolf Hitler. To that end, Max is a sporadically intriguing but uneven debut that does a frustratingly lopsided job of partially squandering its potentially interesting subject matter with a banal script.
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