Alan Rapp

An Education

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: An Education
  • IMDB: link

An Education is based on the autobiographical memoir of Lynn Barber. Set in 1950, the story centers around 16 year-old Jenny Miller (Carey Mulligan) and her relationship with a charismatic older David Goldman gentleman caller (Peter Sarsgaard) who turns her world upside down.

What follows is a May/December romance that everyone sees happening, including Jenny, her teachers, and her parents (Alfred Molina, Cara Seymour), but no one can prevent.

Mulligan provides the heart of the film, and will no doubt recieve a fair amount of praise for her performance. Although I’d seen her in small roles as one of the Bennet sisters in Pride & Prejudice and one of my favorite Doctor Who episodes, I didn’t know she could carry the bulk of a quiet dramatic film on her own.

As good as she is, it’s Sarsgaard’s performance that I was most impressed with. There’s little to like about David, especially as the film slowly reveals more damaged layers of his character.

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Planet 51

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Planet 51
  • IMDB: link

Planet 51 isn’t going to wow you, but as a first animated feature from Ilion Animated Studios it’s better than I expected.

The story is pretty simple: a peaceful world is invaded by an alien explorer, and with the help of a goodhearted youngster and his friends he eludes the government and attempts to get back home.

Okay, not that original I grant you. Even though the story does a nice job of tilting the perspective by having a Earthman be the invader on an alien world, the weakest piece of Planet 51 is its plot.

By allowing the film to take place on an alien world, however, the film also is finds its strength in designing a world, though goofy, is certainly interesting to explore. This world seems to be centered around a circular design you see in everything from windows to the design of automobiles. Merged with this aesthetic is a 1950’s Americana style in terms of look, film, and sound.

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End of Days – Armageddon: The Day After 2012

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: 2012
  • IMDb: link

I didn’t expect much from director Roland Emmerich’s latest disaster flick other than a little dumb fun. 2012 couldn’t even deliver that.

What follows is a short, and hopefully concise, review for a long, and depressingly boring, film (158-minute running time) that is almost as much fun as spending three hours alone in a doctor’s waiting room.

Maybe it was asking too much of Emmerich to give us another big disaster flick (after all, it’s not like 10,000 B.C. did anyone any favors). The man who gave us Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow, and that woeful Godzilla remake, it seems, has nothing new to share. Instead he brings back the same tired storylines, with new actors and larger special effects, in hopes that this alone will be enough to satisfy.

It’s not.

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Staring at Goats

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Men Who Stare at Goats
  • IMDB: link

Men Who Stare at Goats begins by stating that more of what you are about to see is true than you would believe.

Based on the non-fiction book by Jon Ronson the film takes us into the world of government funded programs to create psychic spies, or as George Clooney’s character likes to call them – Jedi Warriors.

The film is presented from the perspective of reporter Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) who stumbles upon the unlikely story while trying to prove something to himself (and his ex-wife after she leaves him for his boss) by jumping hastily into a dangerous story without thinking.

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A Serious (and downright pathetic) Man

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: A Serious Man
  • IMDB: link

a-serious-man-posterFrom the minds of the Coen brothers comes this tale of a rather pathetic Jewish professor of physics in late 60’s Minnesota. Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) is having all kinds of problems, from the serious to the mundane.

Larry is indeed A Serious Man, and one whose existence isn’t likely to be improved over the course of the film. Though you have a feeling if he could see the dark humor of his own situation he might laugh himself to death.

His wife (Sari Lennick) has decided to leave him for a widower (Fred Melamed), his unemployed brother (Richard Kind) is living on his couch, his daughter (Jessica McManus) is stealing from him, a student unsatisfied with his grade (David Kang) and his family are bribing and threatening him, a neighbor wants to build a shed on his property, the committe deciding on his tenure at the college is receiving unflattering letters about the professor, and he’s being hounded by a telephone calls from a man demanding money for records Larry neither asked for nor received.

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