Exciting but oftentimes reaching the point of absurdity, Vantage Point is like a mix of elements of 24 and Lost for the big screen. It features an all-star cast including Dennis Quaid, William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, Matthew Fox, and Forest Whitaker, and it mostly all takes place in one location. I enjoyed the majority of the film but found in the end its flashback structure annoying after the fourth or fifth jump back. It’s just a little too much, and the film would be especially annoying on further viewings. Having said that, it’s not as bad as many critics make it out to be, as it features some great twists, a really cool and stupendously ridiculous chase scene, and a solid performance from Dennis Quaid.

It all starts at a conference meeting in Spain, where the President of the United States (Hurt) arrives and takes the stage in front of a giant audience of on-lookers, including a travelling man with a video camera (Whitaker). Quaid and Fox play members of the President’s secret service, and their jobs are instantly kicked into motion when the President is gunned down (more…)

I’ve only seen a couple of his films now, but Billy Wilder is probably one of the best directors who ever lived. He did direct what has recently become my favorite film - Sunset Boulevard - and he also directed the hilarious One, Two, Three, the brilliant Some Like It Hot, and the absolutely wonderful The Apartment, starring Jack Lemmon. Since the man had a pretty comprehensive career, spanning from the early 1940’s all the way to the early 1980’s, I thought it would be due time to take a look at some of his other work, including his two early favorites, 1945’s The Lost Weekend, and, of course, 1944’s Double Indemnity. Until recently I hadn’t seen this classic film noir, and it was a delight to finally take a look at it.

It seemed like quite often in film school we would be advised that one of the most famous examples of film noir was Double Indemnity. Don’t look the term up in a book, we’d be told. Just watch Double Indemnity. This is one of the films that started the 40’s trend of film noirs, with movies like Laura, The Big Sleep, and To Have and Have Not (Humphrey Bogart usually being a required ingredient as well) (more…)

It would’ve been really difficult for a period soap opera featuring Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johannsen as bickering sisters to go wrong, and, while it’s not a masterpiece by any means, the film thankfully is not a disappointment. I am the first say I’m not a big fan of period movies, but The Other Boleyn Girl is one of the most entertaining films of its kind that I’ve seen in quite awhile. I didn’t see Elizabeth: The Golden Age, but I’d imagine this is an easier sit than that Oscar-winning period piece. While that looked to take itself extra seriously, The Other Boleyn Girl brims with sensationalism and eeks toward cheesiness. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. 

Peter Morgan, who also scripted the highly commended 2006 Helen Mirren-starrer The Queen, writes a screenplay here that is thankfully not all over the place, going through the motions in one subplot after another. Instead he keeps things moving very quickly, with a plot that’s lean but filled with some great twists and turns (more…)

I didn’t much care for the new 2004 Joel Schumacher-directed version of the famous Broadway musical The Phantom of the Opera, but nothing is as dry and joyless as this 1943 version. Dubiously featured in Universal’s Horror Movie Monsters collection, with the phantom character apparently co-existing with such creations as Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Wolf Man, this film is much more opera than anything else the title suggests. Horror? Not so much. I wanted to be swept up in this movie. Instead, I found myself sweeping away the bad taste in my mouth from all the staginess of the material.

Claude Rains, one of the stars of the beloved Casablanca, which came out around this time, does an OK job as the man who turns into the phantom, but mostly the cast is made up of forgettable characters actors. Susanna Foster is especially bland as the female protagonist Christine. The characters don’t really get a chance to flourish because the director seems to be more interested in extended scenes of singing than telling a good story. There’s just not very much forward motion.

It’s all a bummer because I really wanted to love this movie. I saw the Broadway version back in 1999 on a middle school trip to New York (more…)

Last month I made a new 3-minute movie for an internet competition that was looking for a pilot along the lines of “Law and Order” but with any profession one could think of. I decided to do a pilot about college newspaper reporters. The film stars my roommates Will Hyler, Scott Gairdner, Katie Bode, and, yes, even myself! Enjoy!