what's tasty and new in show business. [beta]
Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air continues the talented director’s trend of smart, sharply-executed, and slyly sweet films. It delivers a splendidly rounded cast of characters and a genuinely moving tale while managing to remain topical in the best of ways. Reitman’s policy of “let the film play, and the humor will come” works brilliantly, and turns out to work just as well for the entire range of emotions the movie engenders. It’s this demonstration of restraint, and the ability to execute it without losing any sense of artistic adventurousness, that makes the movie one of the year’s best.
Up in the Air excels in peppering itself with little details and subtle flourishes, fortifying the expression of its biggest and most poignant ideas through a chain of miniscule movements that quietly reveal themselves with lingering effect. The film is exceptionally good at sticking to the telling of an honest story, avoiding the pitfalls of faux grandiosity by letting the truth of the characters power the story. This is what makes it so effective a movie about the present. Read»
Pedro Almodovar begins Broken Embraces, his fourth collaboration with Penelope Cruz, with a cryptic shot of some sort of video screen. We see bodies, faces just out of view, bustling about on the edges of frame, and a lone woman standing near the center, staring at a man whose shoulder we are looking over. If there is any communication between the two, we are not privy to it. After several inscrutable seconds, she steps out of the frame and Cruz replaces her — finally, it clicks into place. We’re looking at a video monitor on a film set, and the unknown woman before was a stand-in. But this opening sequence frames a lot of what is to come: the self-reflexivity imbued in the film, as well as the mood and mystery that is pervasive throughout.
Broken Embraces follows the story of ex-film director Harry Caine (Lluís Homar) as he recounts the tale of the great love of his life. Blinded in an accident many years ago, he was forced to retire from the director’s chair and now writes for a living instead. His life and work is overseen by his agent Judit (Blanca Portillo), with her adult son Diego (Tamar Novas) working as his de facto assistant whenever Judit is unavailable. Harry hears that millionaire Ernesto Martel (José Luis Gómez) has passed away, and soon after a young filmmaker named Ray X (Rubén Ochandiano) appears at his door, asking Harry to write a biopic on Martel that Ray will direct. Harry turns him down, but this chain of events upsets Judit greatly and also leaves Harry shaken. Diego is curious about the whole affair, though Harry refuses to talk about it until Diego inadvertently overdoses on a drugged drink in a Madrid nightclub and Harry must look after his recovering assistant while Judit is out of town. Only then does Harry begin to tell his story, one of love, lust, betrayal, and jealousy, and all of which is rooted around the ravishingly beautiful Magdalena (Cruz). Read»
The coming-of-age story has been done so many times that it is difficult to imagine that anyone has anything refreshing left to add to the genre, if it can be called that. Yet somehow director Lone Scherfig and writer Nick Hornby’s An Education manages to present itself as wholly original, a charming, nostalgic, heartbreaking, and altogether invigorating tale set during a 1961 England that was on the cusp of social and artistic revolution.
Taking place in a post-war, pre-Beatles London suburb, An Education follows 16-year old Jenny, a brilliant and culture-minded student with aims to “read English” at the prestigious Oxford University. Her quiet existence takes an unexpected turn when the charismatic David appears in her life, a suitor twice her age who is debonair, witty, and culturally refined in all the ways that Jenny postures to be. He charms his way into her life and home, even winning the approval of Jenny’s timid and buttoned-up parents, and whisks her off to the alluring and seductive world of smoky jazz clubs and romantic Parisian getaways. Jenny suddenly finds herself faced with either continuing her education, a self-empowering but toiling exercise in which she has recently lost sight of its meaning, or giving herself over to the “university of life” and tackling the world’s adventures head on. Read»
The sweeping fantasy melodrama never quite finds a way to engage the audience on its way to a mediocre, if ambitious, love story. Read»
The hilarity and the heart overcome an overly indulgent plot to make Judd Apatow’s latest a winner. Read»
(500) Days of Summer is an extremely funny and even deeply moving twist on the traditional romantic comedy, anchored by the excellent performances of Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel. Read»
For an infinitely more satisfying action movie than Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, check out Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker. Read»
In part 2 of our Day Seven Wrap-Up, catch the reviews for documentary October Country and the excellent Cold Souls! Read»
Part One of our Day Six wrap-up of the 2009 LAFF features our review of Glenn McQuaid’s horror-comedy I Sell the Dead, starring Dominic Monaghan, Larry Fessenden, and Ron Perlman. Read»
The uproariously funny summer comedy should not be missed. Seriously, go watch it today. Read»
Sam Raimi’s return to horror delivers white-knuckled scares and squeals of delight in one hell of an enjoyable summer movie. Read»
An amusing but ultimately unremarkable addition to the rom com genre. Read»
Strong performances can’t quite redeem Joe Wright’s unfocused if well-crafted tale. Read»
Adventureland is worth the price of admission. Read»
