Movie Reviews

Young Adult

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  • Title: Young Adult
  • IMDB: link

young-adult-posterReuniting with writer Diablo Cody, director Jason Reitman‘s latest is a darkly humorous character study of a woman who has never grown up. In fact, she may be incapable of doing so. We’ve seen stories like this before where a shallow lead character gets his/her comeuppance and has a last minute change of heart. Thankfully, Young Adult is not that movie.

Cody and Reitman are for more interested in showcasing how people don’t change over time than how a singular reality-smashing awakening can transform a character and cause real change. Mavis is a pretty reprehensible self-entitled bitch at the beginning of the film, and a couple of days spent in her hometown doesn’t do much to change that fact. Even if she is a bit humbled by events, she’s still the same person she’s always been.

On learning that her high school boyfriend (Patrick Wilson) and his wife (Elizabeth Reaser) have just had a baby boy, Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron) leaves Minneapolis and travels home to the small suburb of her birth. Sadly, she doesn’t make the trip for the purpose she was invited, to attend the family’s baby shower.

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Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

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  • Title: Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
  • IMDB: link

sherlock-holmes-game-of-shadows-posterI had lukewarm reaction to director Guy Ritchie‘s first attempt at bringing his version of Sherlock Holmes to the big screen. Although the sequel has many of the same problems (needless slow motion, a far too boyish Holmes, a focus on action over mystery, and, at times, a decidedly Hollywood feel) Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is a definite improvement.

Although the sequel still feels too much like a Guy Ritchie film (and not enough like a Sherlock Holmes tale), the director has reigned himself in the second time around. The mystery surrounding Moriarty (Jared Harris) works far better than the occult nonsense we had to endure in Sherlock Holmes.

On the eve of Watson’s (Jude Law) marriage to Mary (Kelly Reilly), Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) and Moriarty are locked in a deadly battle that involves weapons of mass destruction (at least for the end of the 19th Century) that can only end in tragedy on the water’s edge at Reichenbach Falls.

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Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

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  • Title: Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
  • IMDb: link

mission-impossible-ghost-protocol-poster

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol begins with a jailbreak and ends with a chase through the streets of Mumbai. In between we get a chase through a sandstorm, an attempt to climb he largest building the world, the looming threat of nuclear war, gadgets and gizmos, a prison escape, and a hell of a lot of fun. The latest entry into the Mission: Impossible franchise is not only great summer popcorn movie fare (in December, no less!), it has the feel of the original television show as well.

Our story begins when Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is broken out of Russian prison by the IMF and given a new team (Paula Patton, Simon Pegg). Together, if they chose to accept it, they are assigned to break into the Kremlin to find information about a Russian terrorist known only as Cobalt (Michael Nyqvist) who plans to start a nuclear war between the United States and Russia.

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My Week with Marilyn

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  • Title: My Week with Marilyn
  • IMDB: link

my-week-with-marilyn-posterIt’s almost as shame Michelle Williams is so good as Marilyn Monroe in My Week with Marilyn because her performance could easily overshadow what is one of the year’s best films.

There have been plenty of films I’ve enjoyed and appreciated in 2011, but I’ve waited a 11-and-a-half months to walk out of a theater and say I love a film. That streak is now over.

My Week with Marilyn based on Colin Clark’s memoir, recounts the young man’s first experience working on a film as the third assistant director of The Prince and the Showgirl directed and starring renown British actor Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh) and American sensation Marilyn Monroe (Williams).

My Week with Marilyn isn’t only a love story to the troubled actress, but also this age of filmmaking and celebrity when one of England’s greatest actors took a chance on an increasingly hard to work with actress who the camera loved. The experiment went so well Olivier would essentially give up directing and return to the stage.

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Melancholia

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  • Title: Melancholia
  • IMDB: link

melancholia-posterIt begins, and ends, with the end of the world. The latest from writer/director Lars von Trier is a bleak examination at the lives of two sisters in the days before the arrival of a mysterious planet on a collision course with the Earth.

We begin with Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Michael (Alexander Skarsgård) who are late to their own wedding reception. At first this cute occurrence of a limbo driver not being able to navigate the narrow drive to where the event is held seems nothing more than a mildly diverting challenge for the new couple to navigate. We soon learn, however, that the newlyweds have all kinds of problems they will struggle through on this night.

Over the course of the evening Justine, already stressed by the wedding, is pressured by her husband sister to act normal, her boss Stellan Skarsgård) wants a slogan for a new campaign, her sister’s husband (Kiefer Sutherland) wants her gratitude for the gala he’s paid for, and her mother (Charlotte Rampling) is complaining constantly at the absurdity of marriage.

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