Jayne Mansfield’s Car is a tedious, depressing dysfunctional film about a tedious, depressing, dysfunctional pair of families, headed by patriarchs Robert Duvall and John Hurt, respectively. It seems that 30 years before, Kingsley Bedford (Hurt) stole Jim Caldwell’s (Duvall) wife, Naomi (Tippi Hedren, whose most famous role was in Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds“) and took…
It seems the dearth of Hollywood comedies has reached epidemic proportions, and with the newest release, Identity Thief, that record continues unabated. If any laughs are garnered from this Seth Gordon directed production, they are cheaply achieved indeed, and come through a few grotesque moments dealing with voyeurism or people getting shot and stuffed into…
It’s said 1 of 10 in the United States has been a victim of identity theft (with online proliferation I think this number will certainly increase). In Universal Pictures’ Identity Thief, Sandy Bigelow Patterson is a victim. The funny thing is Sandy is a guy in Denver and the thief is a woman in Miami….
I’m sure there is a meaning to the title of Billy Bob Thornton’s Jayne Mansfield’s Car but I’m not certain of what it is. Maybe it’s the fact that when two disparate families — one from Alabama and the other from England — meet for a funeral they mesh as well as a car crash….
Daniel Espinosa’s Safe House is a lesson in “Filmmaking with Parkinson’s.” The choppily edited actions sequences — onslaughts of bright colors and enough “shaky-camera” to make Jason Bourne nauseous — are hard to endure. Moreover, they’re built on clichés: Coincidental protests (allowing the protagonists some cover), accidental assassinations, and a handful of close calls. Because…
I must say, when Denzel Washington plays a badass motherfucker, no one can compare. In his latest, Safe House, he takes on the role of Tobin Frost, a wanted, rogue CIA agent — one responsible for the deaths of many agents and informants. When he suddenly turns up in Cape Town with a secret, all…
Preconceived notions are like mother nature — a bitch. Especially to someone who likens themselves to an unbiased critic. So with a heavy heart, I admit, I went into the theater to see Bridge to Terabithia thinking it was going to be a weak runner-up to “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and…
