It’s almost like making a $100,000,000 movie based on a half-forgotten series of trading cards was a bad idea. Tim Burton‘s 1996 adaptation of the early 60s trading card series offers ten minutes or so of really great visuals recreating classic scenes from the series chronicling Earth being invaded by Martians. The trouble is, those 10 minutes are spread out over the film’s 106-minute runtime.
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A classic tale of a boy in a rush to grow up is explored through this futuristic time travel story when young Arco (Oscar Tresanini | Juliano Krue Valdi), out for a joy ride flying through the sky in a rainbow, loses control and ends up trapped nearly 900 years in the past. There he meets and befriends another lonely child (Margot Ringard Oldra | Romy Fay) who helps him search for his missing time-travel gem as Arco is pursued by three conspiracy nuts out to prove their wild theories are true.
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The Sunday Style of Natalie Portman Read More »
The goal of a biopic is to offer insight into its subject, to explore the life of an individual and share something new or interesting about its central character. By that definition Jackie is a complete failure. The only takeaway from director Pablo Larraín‘s film is that Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was upset by the assassination of her husband. That’s hardly worth the price of admission (let alone the film’s $9,000,000 budget). Natalie Portman may shine in the role, but to what purpose?
Oscar-bait, the film is notable only for its recreation of the time period and for Portman’s peformance. The problem with the former is the glamour is wasted as window dressing on a film without a reason to exist (other than grab Portman some statuettes). The problem with the later is Portman’s performance is undercut by both a questionable accent and Noah Oppenheim‘s script which is never sure who Jackie was, as it jumps from portraying a vapid creature out of touch with reality (as seen in the flashbacks) to a woman of cunning and guile completely controlling an interview with a journalist (Billy Crudup) looking to find the real Mrs. Kennedy.
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The Most Overrated Movie of 2016 Read More »
The subject of friends with benefits usually makes for lackluster Hollywood scripts. No Strings Attached is no exception. Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher star as acquaintances who meet occasionally over the years and eventually get together in as sex friends who “use each other for sex at all hours of the day and night.” The story obviously wants us to root for these two wacky kids to get together in a real relationship, but gives us no real reason to do so.
There are also subplots about his career as a hopeful writer in show business and his father (Kevin Kline) dating his former girlfriend (Ophelia Lovibond), but neither of these amount to much. And, in true Apatowian homage (nicer than saying rip-off), we also get several scenes with and his friends (Jake M. Johnson, Ludacris) and and her friends (Greta Gerwig, Mindy Kaling) discussing relationships, sex, and menstruation with slightly inappropriate (but only occasionally funny) ways.
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No Strings Attached Read More »
