Friday, April 19, 2013
PG-13 film starring Tom Cruise opens Friday in theaters.
In director Joseph Kosinski's Oblivion, you can see a love for and desire to expand on the great classics of science fiction on film. With the most impressive use of IMAX for a feature film to date, in that respect he has created something new and exciting, with what is essentially a 3-D movie where you don't need the glasses. Production esigner Darren Gilford (of TRON: Legacy) and cinematographer Claudio Miranda (Oscar winner for Life of Pi) make, to quote the movie, "an effective team." The visual landscapes of the film and the meticulousness taken in the action sequences are extraordinary. Here, the integration of CGI (computer-generated imagery) and live filming is another indication of the rapid advancements happening in moviemaking…
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Rated R for language, violence, nudity.
Director Danny Boyle, fresh off being dubbed a national hero for his triumph directing the Olympic ceremonies in London, took another big directorial risk with his new release Trance. It is a frenetic, haunting genre-bender that grabs hold of and keeps your attention from its first moments to its last with such force you'll feel like you're falling through Alice's rabbit hole after being hurled into it by two burly six-foot bunnies in kilts. This cinematic journey is one filled with confusion, illusions, violence and moral ambiguities, and not a head trip everyone will be willing to surrender to or appreciate. Much like the somewhat similarly convoluted Inception, it is a love it or hate it kind of flick. Whether it will be enjoyable for…
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Cinema Siren gives film three out of five starfish.
"I don't want to be a good man, I want to be a great one!" This declaration by James Franco as the title character of Sam Raimi's new Disney prequel could just as easily be a hope of the director's as well. Is the movie great? Is it even good? Oz the Great and Powerful is entertaining and you could do worse than to spend your time watching this interpretation of L. Frank Baum's world flash flowers and toss monkey wings in your face. But the weaknesses of it make me walk all the way to the dark edge between recommendation and warning to ponder throwing my ruby shoes into the abyss. Uh oh. Cinema Siren is damning with faint praise here, especially if you know how much sparkly shoes mean to a girl... This movie tells the story of how the …
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
The Fairfax County Public School grad based his novel 'The Wettest County in the World' on a true story.
As most authors will tell you, it is not all that common to sell the movie rights to your work as soon as the book is on the shelves. It is even less common to ever see the story you sold actually translated onscreen. "The Wettest County in the World" is a best-selling novel based on a true story. It has now become the film "Lawless," released in theaters and reviewed by me last week. Local writer Matt Bondurant, who was born and raised in Alexandria's Mount Vernon area, was inspired by exploits from his grandfather and grand uncles' time as makers and distributors of moonshine in prohibition-era Franklin County, Va. I spoke to Matt, who still visits the Washington area often to see his family (his dad is the basis for the lead …
Friday, August 10, 2012
Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones elevate what should be called ‘Mope Springs’: Marriage Melancholia
In a world where teenagers are the stars and films are green-lit based on the number of explosions, it behooves us adults to put our cinematic money where our mouths are and support films with actors who stand for the older members of the audience, especially when these actors represent the very height of thespian prowess. Hope Springs is about a couple, played by Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones, who have been married for 31 years. They venture (at the behest of Streep's character) to Maine to attend a week of intensive marriage counseling to try to bring back the intimacy missing in their relationship. Make no mistake. This is a movie that has the single worst marketing campaign of the year to date. Hope Springs is less Woody Allen …
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Not a good weekend for new films.
Not much is happening in new movies this weekend. Recently, however, all too much happened in a movie theater in Aurora, Colo. More about that after my reviews of this weekend's offerings... Step Up Revolution The Watch and Step Up Revolution are the releases, and both have had or should have troubles relating to national headlines. Political correctness is often taken way too far in this country. People seem to waste time better spent with their families or cleaning belly button lint being righteously offended. That being said, let's begin this week talking dance…there's a sequence in the hyperbolically named Step Up Revolution (revolution? if Che Guevara is in it, I must have missed him) that has rightly gotten negative press for a …
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Movie review of "John Carter," rated PG-13.
Yes, Virginia, there is a John Carter, and it's good! Last week, I wrote a review of "John Carter" that was on the positive side of the 50 percent of the balance of good and bad that were released by critics worldwide. Here's an update: There is a chorus of strong voices rising comprised of rabid fans of the film, who are creating Facebook pages, blogs, and videos, attempting to get more movie lovers to see for themselves what they believe to be a highly entertaining and sequel-worthy film. See for yourself on Facebook, where the page "Take me back to Barsoom! I want John Carter to have a sequel" is at more than 4,000 members and growing. My own experience as an art gallery owner who sells film art (and yes, despite the pre-release …
Leslie Combemale
8:39 am on Friday, April 12, 2013
In case you want to see the trailer, here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKdm-5gbtgo more ›