3 Razors

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
  • IMDB: link

“I, for one, am not running around town with Oliver Twist’s mom.”

miss-pettigrew-lives-for-a-day

Delysia Lafosse (Amy Adams) is a lounge singer and aspiring actress.  She’s sweet, lovable, and willing to use her sexual wiles to make her dreams come true.  As the film opens Delysia is dating three men: the owner of the club where she works (Mark Strong) who provides her with a luxurious apartment, a young Broadway producer (Tom Payne) who is casting a coveted role, and Michael (Lee Pace), a penniless piano player and the love of her young life.

Into this juggling act arrives Guinevere Pettigrew (Frances McDormand), an out of work governess unable to find work.  Taking the job as Delysia’s social secretary under less than reputable circumstances, Mrs. Pettigrew becomes the friend and older sister Delysia so needs.

There’s not much to the plot other than misunderstandings and white lies.  Almost everyone here could do what the script calls for in their sleep.  McDormand is the star of the piece.  Adams is sweet as the lovable mixed-up tart.  And everyone else is mostly forgettable.

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Glory Road

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Glory Road
  • IMDb: link

“Nobody can take something away from you you don’t give them.”

Glory Road

After telling the tale of integration of T.C. Williams High School football with Remember the Titans producer Jerry Bruckheimer returns to familiar ground with this tale inspired by the true events of Don Haskins (Josh Lucas) and Texas Western, the first team to start five African-American players in an NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship Game.

In much the same way as Titans this film deals with the hardships and racism from both inside and outside the program.  As a Disney film it’s a bit cleaned up considering its subject matter, though it does contain one or two disturbing scenes which make you wonder exactly how it received its PG rating.

The cast is strong and there are some nice supporting performances, hey nobody plays an asshole coach like Jon Voight, and Emily Deshanel has a nice role as Mary Haskins.  Also worth noting all the players, including Derek Luke, Austin Nichols, Evan Jones, Schin A.S. Kerr, and Alphonso McAuley, who turn out good performances both on and off the court.

Because of the familiarity and similarities with Remember the Titans the film does have a been-there, done-that, feel to it at times.  I wouldn’t call it a great sports film, but it is a good one; the performances are strong, and there’s certainly enough here to recommend in a tale worth telling, and listening to.

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Meet Charlie Bartlett

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Charlie Bartlett
  • IMDB: link

“My family has a psychiatrist on call, how normal can I be?”
 

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Charlie Bartlett (Anton Yelchin) has gotten kicked out of his last private school for making fake drivers licenses for the entire student population.  Now it’s off to public school and an attempt to fit in.

The problem is the uptight Charlie, complete with tie and blazer, doesn’t exactly fit in.  He’s largely ignored and picked on by the resident bully (Tyler Hilton), before finding his niche as the school’s unofficial conselor and drug dealer.  Charlie’s motives are pure, most of the time, and he tries his best to help the student body by using the army of psychiatrists his family has on call to get the medication for them.  Charlie also raises the ire of the principal (Robert Downey Jr.) by dating his daughter (Kat Dennings), and is forced to face the music when some of his schemes are discovered.

There’s something hopefull about this film.  It doesn’t paint a single character as black and white, each has the capacity for change and the yearning for something more.  In a teenage comedy that’s quite rare.

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Diary of the Dead

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Diary of the Dead
  • IMDB: link

“Jason always wanted to be a documentary filmmaker.  That’s what he was shooting on that first night.  The night when everything changed.”
 

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George A. Romero returns to the beginning of his Dead Series with this tale of young filmmakers making a horror movie in the woods as the outbreak occurs and the world finds itself infested with zombies.  Much like his early works the film is equal parts horror flick and social commentary.  Here the roles and actions of news channels, broadcasting, reality television, the government, and other institutions and individuals all become fuel to the filmmaker to set ablaze in satire.

Although the film doesn’t really add much to the series it does, in the tone of the previous films, present a decidedly somber and fatalistic view of the world absent in most Hollywood films.  Much like The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield the film uses the handheld shaky cam for most of the action; although unlike these other films it doesn’t rely on the shaky cam solely and spends time on both character and plot as well.

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The Spiderwick Chronicles

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Spiderwick Chronicles
  • IMDb: link

The Spiderwick Chronicles

The story begins when a mother (Mary-Louise Parker), now separted from her husband (Andrew McCarthy), takes her children Jared (Freddie Highmore), Not-Jared (also Freddie Highmore) and Mallory (Sarah Bolger) to live in the abandoned house of their great-uncle Arthur Spiderwick (David Strathairn).

The house comes complete with cobwebs, hidden rooms, a brownie named Thimbletack (Martin Short), and a book of mystical secrets made by Arthur Spiderwick before his disappearance decades ago.

After Jared discovers the book, and learns the secrets within, his family comes under attack from goblins led by a shape-shifting ogre named Mulgarath (Nick Nolte) who wants to use the knowledge in the book to take over the world.

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