Last year, actress Ellen Page delivered one of the scariest, most intense, and most memorable performance in years in the thriller Hard Candy, about a pedophile who gets what’s coming to him from a little girl he’s praying on, a 14-year-old who is much more intelligent and aware than the man thinks she is. And here we are, just a year later, and Ellen Page once again delivers a unique, superb, and just as memorable performance in the wonderful comedy Juno, written by first-time screenwriter Diablo Cody and directed by Jason Reitman (Thank You for Smoking). It’s easily one of the best comedies of the year.

Your enjoyment of the movie relies heavily on what you think of the character of Juno. She’s a specific kind of creation, and she may not be to everyone’s liking. But I fell in love with her. She’s a wise-cracking 16-year-old girl who (more…)

It’s nothing short of inspiring when an 83-year-old director makes one of the most entertaining and energetic movies of the year, and that’s the case here with Sidney Lumet’s Before the Devil Knows Your Dead. I only heard of this film in recent weeks, and it’s definitely stayed under the radar. I didn’t know what to expect walking into this one, and I couldn’t be happier with the results. The movie feels like the work of a young up-and-coming filmmaker, with its fast pace, time-jumping editing, and never-ending plot twists. What this movie proves more than anything, just like Clint Eastwood and Million Dollar Baby did a few years ago, is that a director, even in his 70’s and 80’s, can always be learning and experimenting and constantly honing his craft.

The movie reminded me a lot of Sam Raimi’s 1998 chiller A Simple Plan, about a group of people who find a sack of money beside a small fallen airplane, money that destroys the lives of everyone involved. Characters going after a huge sum of cash in the wrong ways always makes for riveting storylines, and that goes for the involving narrative of Before the Devil Knows Your Dead. Two brothers, Andrew and Hank (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke), are both strapped for cash (more…)

Ahhh, how I needed this movie. After a couple months of seeing seemingly nothing but dramas and epics, seeing Dan in Real Life last night at the beautiful Landmark Theatres in West Hollywood was a welcome surprise. Not that I was all that surprised, really. The movie comes from the gifted comedic mind of Peter Hedges, who wrote and directed the quirky 2003 indie Pieces of April, starring Katie Holmes and the Oscar-nominated Patricia Clarkson, and who co-wrote the wonderful 2002 Hugh Grant comedy About a Boy, my favorite film of that year. Dan in Real Life is a fairly straightforward movie, mostly taking place at one location, and it never fails to entertain throughout its entire running time.

Dan (Steve Carell) has had it rough the last few years. His newspaper column is still not syndicated. His wife died of a tragic illness. He has three daughters who all seem to hate him with various degrees. And now he’s going on his annual trip to the country to spend time with his family. Along the way, however, he meets a woman named Marie (the gorgeous Juliette Binoche) in a bookstore, and the two have an immediate connection. He gets her number and feels like he might’ve finally met somebody worth pursuing. When he gets to the family home, however, he discovers (more…)

About half-way through American Gangster, I practically expected director Ridley Scott to walk on-screen, stare out at the audience, and shout, the camera close up on his face, “I know, I know, I’m fuckin badass. Enjoy the rest of the show.” When Ridley Scott is good, he is good, and here he delivers one of the most exciting, exhausting, enthralling movies of the year. It would be obvious to say that watching Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe in equally intense stories is going to be a lot of fun to watch even with a mediocre script and in the hands of a lesser director. Thankfully, the film has a rich and complex script by the talented Steven Zaillain, and Scott is in top form. Just like The Departed did for Martin Scorsese last year, finally, after decades of superb work, winning him the Best Director Oscar, American Gangster might pull the same trick for the overdue Scott.

The movie opens with a brief, jaw-dropping scene where Frank Lucas (Washington), a member of a group of black crime bosses, lights a man who wronged him on fire, lets him scream for a few moments, then shoots him dead. The movie quickly cuts to the title, and the tone is immediate set in. What follows (more…)

Ahhhh, film festivals. My ultimate weakness. There’s nothing like sitting in a room with a group of true film fans, eagerly awaiting a movie nobody knows anything about. I very rarely know much about movies I’ve seen at Sundance or the LA Film Festival or the AFI Festival. Sometimes the movies are disappointing, but most of the time they are very good. I’ve seen the worst movies of the year at the LA Film Festival this year–Trigger Man and Wizard of Gore. I’ve also seen some of the best–2 Days in Paris and Billy the Kid. It’s a little bit scary to walk into a movie you know nothing about, but it can also be really rewarding.

My festival experience started in 2003 with a trip up to Park City, Utah, for the Sundance Film Festival. I saw only five films during that short weekend, but I knew right away that film festivals were not only a blast but also truly inspiring for up and coming filmmakers like myself. I’ve been to Sundance once since, in 2005, and I’ve gone to the LA Film Festival in 2006 and 2007. Both festivals are pretty fantastic, with great 10 day line-ups of films. The AFI Festival, the second major Los Angeles film festival, begins today, and I must say I’m pretty excited at this year’s films. The AFI Festival can be a little bit scarier because there’s an emphasis on international cinema, which I typically don’t make first choice, but I’m going to try to see films this week from all over the world. It should be pretty interesting.

Tonight marks the opening night of the festival, with the opening gala screening of Robert Redford’s Lions for Lambs. I will see the movie eventually, but I didn’t go, because I’m cheap and I bought the cheapest pass you can get. I got the Day Pass, which allows me to see movies screened any day during the festival before 6pm. Today’s first screening is at 7pm, and tomorrow’s first screening is at 7pm, so I won’t actually be seeing a movie until day 3 of the festival, on Saturday (with Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales, woo hoo!).

Throughout the next week I will be making sporadic updates on the festival, writing about what’s worked the best and what didn’t quite do it for me. Today, to complete this first entry, I’ve included the complete list of mini-reviews for all the movies I saw at the LA Film Festival in June. Some have been released, some may never see the light of day again, but most are worth seeing. Enjoy! (more…)