Former WWE wrestler Steve Austin, it seems, has become the new luminary of straight-to-video action films. Arriving after Damage, The Stranger, Hunt to Kill and Knockout, 2011’s Tactical Force was made by newcomer writer-director Adamo P. Cultraro, and his inexperience shows. A high-gloss action-thriller, Tactical Force solely aimed to provide some brainless thrills, but it…
Character growth seems like a lost art in many films these days but I’m happy to say that self-discovery plays a prominent role in The Descendants, Alexander Payne’s first film since Sideways seven years ago. Based on the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings, George Clooney is Matt King, a well-to-do real estate lawyer, who lives…
A “found footage” mockumentary, Lake Mungo is not a typical horror movie in the vein of The Blair Witch Project or The Exorcist. Instead of a schlocky series of cheap scares, freshman writer-director Joel Anderson has crafted a low-key supernatural drama which examines the emotional repercussions of a family dealing with grief. With that said…
Fans of David Cronenberg may be at first put off by the pristine stuffiness that envelops A Dangerous Method. While the historical basis for the film is depicted in John Kerr’s “A Most Dangerous Method,” the screenplay has been adapted by Christopher Hampton from his 2002 stage play “The Talking Cure,” and it shows. This…
Reflecting both the film’s target audience and the man at the helm (who we can all agree has seen better days), Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar opens with its titular protagonist (Leonardo DiCaprio), loose-skinned, prune-hued, and silver-haired, doing what people his age do: Ranting and raving. In his particular case it is about communism, which he…
Based on the play “God of Carnage,” by French playwright Yasmina Reza, Roman Polanski’s latest outing, Carnage, follows 2010’s “The Ghost Writer,” a film unceremoniously swept under the rug. Not to suffer the same fate, the retitled, Brooklyn-transplanted (an impressive facsimile utilizing special effects and careful production design, mimicking the real thing adeptly despite having…
Tarsem Singh Dhandwar, known sometimes as Tarsem Singh or merely Tarsem (maybe just “T” one day), certainly has an affinity for pretty, shiny things. His third and shiniest film to date, the plodding, silly, wake-me-when-it’s-over Greek mythology pic Immortals has its fair share of impressive images. Well, more than its fair share, really. Every shot…
