How does he do it? Woody Allen has been churning out a movie a year since the late 60’s, typically one little gem after another, that is until the last decade or so. Ever since Deconstructing Harry, the quality of Allen’s films have gone downhill. He didn’t make one movie I didn’t like before Deconstructing Harry. Since that one, there have only been two or three, with Match Point being the clear favorite, and the underrated Curse of the Jade Scorpion coming in after that. Cassandra’s Dream, while not a great movie, is a hugely entertaining thriller that proves once again that Allen might be more talented as of late with drama instead of with comedy.

Who’s ever wanted to watch Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell together in the same movie for two hours? I know I have. And if you’re a fan of either one of these guys, you will delight in seeing them play off of each other in this. McGregor and Farrell play brothers, the former a more confident businessman and the latter a brooding, down-on-his-luck garage mechanic. They look kind of like they could be brothers, and their chemistry together is (more…)

Cue the lights! Cue the music! Cue the boredom! I’ve never struggled so much to get through a feature-length Disney movie than I did through Fantasia. In looking back on old films I’ve never seen, I really wanted to make an effort to watch all the early Disney films I’d never seen as a kid. One of the films high up there was Fantasia, a movie I knew a lot about but somehow never actually came to watch. Now I’m sure I would’ve had a different experience watching this in a theatre. I probably would’ve had a different experience if I were a little younger (or a lot older). And maybe I’m just a little too cynical at this point in my life. But aside from the memorable Sorcerer’s Apprentice episode, and the pretty damn terrifying final episode Night on Bald Mountain, the movie failed to make any sort of impression on me. I guess I’m too married to the narrative structure. Strike me dead, I am!

1940 was a landmark year for Walt Disney because it marked the year of not one but two highly anticipated follow-ups to his first animated feature film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The first and great success is Pinocchio, a film far superior (more…)

Atonement is a very well made, if a little bit underwhelming, film that features a handful of good performances, gorgeous cinematagraphy, and a twist ending that makes up for a lot of the third-act story problems I had. I liked it a whole lot more than I thought I would. I’ve never been a big fan of period romance movies, but this one gets a whole lot right.

It all starts with the casting. James McAvoy is for sure one of the most exciting new faces in the movies. All the attention last year was paid to Forest Whitaker’s commanding, Oscar-winning performance in The Last King of Scotland, but the question I kept asking myself while watching the movie was, what about this other guy? He’s fantastic in that film, and he’s excellent here. Keira Knightley, who is doing her best work under the guidance of Joe Wright, who directed her in this and the better 2005 version of Pride & Prejudice, shows not just how beautiful she can be but also how she can act far better than (more…)

Best Picture

• The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
• Into the Wild 
• Juno
• No Country for Old Men
• There Will Be Blood

 Best Director

• Joe Wright, Atonement
• Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
• Sean Penn, Into the Wild
• The Coen Brothers, No Country for Old Men
• Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood

 Best Actor

• George Clooney, Michael Clayton
• Daniel Day Lewis, There Will Be Blood
• Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd 
• Ryan Gosling, Lars and the Real Girl 
• Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises 

 Best Actress

• Julie Christie, Away From Her
• Marion Cotillard, La Vie En Rose
• Angelina Jolie, A Mighty Heart
• Laura Linney, The Savages 
• Ellen Page, Juno 

(more…)

To this day I am amazed at movies that have everything going for it and still manage to disappoint. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is the perfect example of a movie that shouldn’t be a letdown, that shouldn’t be mundane, slow, pointless. I mean, this film has a ton of great facets. Tim Burton. Johnny Depp. Helena Bonham Carter. Alan Rickman. There’s singing. There’s brooding. There’s bloodshed. And there are pies… delicious meat-filled pies. I was expecting one of the five best films of the year. And that’s on top of this film being recognized by critics as one of Burton’s best movies in years, and it just won the Golden Globe for Best Musical or Comedy, over Hairspray and Juno. What do I say to that? Blasphemy!

Sweeney Todd marks Burton’s fifth disappointment in a row, following Planet of the Apes (which shall forever be his worst and only truly bad film), Big Fish (his best film this decade but still not great), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (a sad experience for major fans of the Gene Wilder original), and the Corpse Bride (a pale imitation of Nightmare Before Christmas). Burton seems to be becoming the new Rob Reiner (more…)

To watch a movie with James Stewart is to spend time with an old friend. He has the warmest voice and personality to have possibly ever appeared on the silver screen. In looking at his impressive filmography, I was surprised to see I haven’t seen too many of his films. Of the major ones he did over his entire career, I’ve seen Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Philadelphia Story, It’s a Wonderful Life, Harvey, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, plus, of course, the four films he did for Alfred Hitchcock. If he had been in half the classics he was in, he’d be considered a legendary star today. The fact that he’s in all these movies is astounding. And there’s another great one to add to the list. Anatomy of a Murder is famous for having the longest trial ever played out on film. At nearly three hours at length, this is not a brief picture by any means. It’s a very good film, although watching it so soon after the brilliance of 12 Angry Men brought it down in quality for me a little. I just wasn’t as compelled with the case as much in this film, dealing with a rape and a murder. But the good pacing and terrific performance by Stewart keep things moving (more…)

I’ve learned over the past decade to expect the unexpected from Paul Thomas Anderson, one of the most exciting and talented filmmakers working today. But nothing could’ve prepared us for There Will Be Blood. Where did this film come from inside of him? It’s as if after Punch Drunk Love he decided to take the biggest 180 he could and come up with something nobody would expect from him. While this is a superb film, beautifully shot, memorably scored, with one of the most commanding performances of the year by Daniel Day Lewis, it didn’t affect me on an emotional level like Boogie Nights, Magnolia, and Punch Drunk Love did. In essence, I admired There Will Be Blood more than I loved it. But it’s an astonishing film nonetheless with an especially engrossing first hour.

Director Anderson’s first film was the promising Sydney (retitled Hard Eight by the studio and taken out of his hands for a different version that Anderson didn’t approve of) in 1996, and he followed that up a year later with the electric Boogie Nights, a movie that never (more…)

Some movies are so timeless that they cease to exist as movies. They become living, breathing things. It’s hard to think of The Wizard of Oz as just another movie because it’s left such a huge impression on me, as it has done I’m sure for many generations of movie lovers. I can honestly say that my earliest memory of loving a film and acknowledging the power of a movie was in watching The Wizard of Oz back when I was a kid. The switch from black and white to color was drastic and noticeable to even the youngest of eyes, and I remember at a very young age trying to decipher what had just happened on that screen. I don’t know what it would have been like for audiences in 1939, who were used to seeing everything in black-and-white, but even in the late 80’s, when everything I was seeing was in color, it worked wonders on my senses. What a classic this is. Almost seventy years later, it is still charming entertainment that works as well for kids as it does for adults.

The beauty of The Wizard of Oz is how it blends so many elements into one seamless motion picture. The eclectic cast of characters. The nutty and memorable performances. The absolutely wonderful songs. The heartwarming and sometimes heartbreaking score. The sweeping and sterling cinematography. The attention to detail in all the production design. I could go on and on. It all works so well that it can be easy to take it for granted, just how rare a perfect merging (more…)

 I need to start giving up hope for movies that have long been delayed for a theatrical release. In November I walked into Southland Tales trying to be as optimistic as possible, ignoring the bad buzz and the 18-month delay, but was ultimately let down by the final product. And now there’s another long-delayed film, also starring Mandy Moore even (who had quite the busy year in 2007, 5 films and not a single good one), entitled Romance & Cigarettes, finally making a limited run around the country. I remember reading about this movie my freshman… year… of… college, almost four years ago. Kate Winslet is one of my favorites, and I always like to keep up on her new films (although All the King’s Men and Flushed Away have strangely passed me by…). This film was shot in the Spring of 2004, and I remember when the first pictures of her appeared on the Internet. Wow, I thought. This movie is going to be fantastic.

Then three and a half years went by and I kind of forgot about the movie. I’ve looked it up every once in awhile on IMDB, but I assumed by the end of 2006 that the movie would eventually just be released to DVD, if that. The funny thing is that throughout this whole period I was always interested (more…)