by Christina Waters | May 17, 2010 | Home, Movies |
The first time around, it was Robert Downey Jr. I was watching. And even with this second installment of the Marvel Comic hero, Downey is an endlessly adroit chameleon, able to pivot moods in micro-seconds. Yet, somehow—especially since most of the film reduces to a series of high-tech explosions—it’s Mickey Rourke I’m watching this time around.
No man sports tattoos better than Rourke, who’s made a performance piece out of his scars, unfathomable hair and more-macho-than-thou dress code. He could make tattoed feet a global fashion statement. But obviously the key to his seductive loser’s swagger lies elsewhere.
Seemingly free of pretense, he appears grittier, more real than the very screen he explodes upon. When he unleashes whips of fire and electricity, he’s believable. The metal teeth, the gutteral Russian accent, the unnaturally swollen fingernails that attack keyboards in order to reprogram satellite software—I submit, utterly, to whatever it is this guy’s selling. (more…)
by Christina Waters | Apr 11, 2010 | Home, Movies |
It wasn’t enough that Sam Worthington stunk up Avatar. He’s gone and done it again, this time wearing Greek armor along with his burr cut and clenched jaw.
Against all odds, and certainly against good judgment, Worthington somehow landed the hero’s role of Perseus, in this needless remake of the 1981 Clash of the Titans. You know the story. Zeus, Hades and Poseidon are steamed up over humans’ disrespect for the gods. So they crank up their ultimate monster from hell, the Kracken, for a big dose of destructive pay-back.
Fine. So Perseus, the love child of a human mother and Zeus, the big kahuna of Olympus (long story), leads a pack of studly (more…)
by Christina Waters | Mar 28, 2010 | Home, Movies |
Tell me I’m not alone in finding the new Tim Burton exercise in narcissism a crashing bore. (Except for the miraculous vision of Johnny Depp.) Obviously made to cash in on the momentary 3-D craze, Alice in Wonderland, the newest screen visitation to the holy shrine of Lewis Carroll is just not up to the task, I don’t care how much turquoise eyeshadow they put on Helena Bonham-Carter’s Betty Boop eyes!
Oh the opening definitely grabbed me, offering a shimmering reminder of the magic of Carroll’s shamanic fable of the role of the imagination in constructing the texture of reality. But when that tiny doorway finally lets the newly miniaturized Alice into the garden of talking flowers, things grew—not curiouser and curiouser, but rather more and more obvious, predictable, and in many cases, (ironically) unimaginative.
To relish the gorgeous face and nimble movements of Johnny Depp is to realize all over again that no artificially-generated imagery can match the nuance and depth of human action. But Depp’s appeal is almost drowned in computerized cliché and hackneyed set design.
The genius that brought us Edward Scissorhands somehow failed (more…)
by Christina Waters | Feb 15, 2010 | Home, Movies |
A riddle in the key of repression – and destined to win a few Oscars.
“Director Michael Haneke believes that one generation’s moral decay is rarely eradicated, but lingers submerged in the collective unconscious until future events trigger its return. In a German village on the verge of World War I a series of random events ignites suspicion, violence and strange punishment. The ripening mood of paranoia and retaliation tears apart the village fabric, until the messes are covered up and control regained. As a forensic allegory of hypocrisy, longing, and disappointment, The White Ribbon owns a place in the short list of all-time unforgettable films.”
That’s how I began my review of The White Ribbon — you can read the entire piece in the current Santa Cruz Weekly. And no matter how many people try to scare you off, don’t miss this gorgeous and provocative film.
I’m so tired of people saying to me, “yes, but it’s in black and white,” as if describing some sort of physical deformity. (more…)
by Christina Waters | Jan 20, 2010 | Home, Movies |
We learn many things from the new Sherlock Holmes film starring the very pretty Jude Law as Dr. Watson, and the always appealing Robert Downey Jr. as the eccentric fictional sleuth, Sherlock Holmes.
We learn for example that Madonna was right to ditch Guy Ritchie, a man whose directorial credentials reside in his ability to write big checks.
We learn that Robert Downey Jr. is easily the most watchable actor on the screen. Yet that isn’t enough. Even he—gasp—is beginning to rely on self-parody and schtick. He had to. There was neither script, nor story nor director available.
We learn, once and for all, that despite his visual appeal, Jude Law cannot act.
We learn that misogyny is afoot and evident in the casting of two woefully awkward and untrained ingenues to play the female bits in the new Sherlock Holmes flick. One is a poor girl so loaded with collagen that she can barely say her lines. The other is a terrific looking actress (I use the term with abandon here), Rachel McAdams, whom we are to believe is not only a cunning vixen, a brilliant sleuth in her own right but the once and only love interest of the great Holmes himself. Yet when McAdams opens her mouth, the entire facade crumbles. Her squeaky valley girl delivery makes a mockery of what might have been a delicious foil for the utterly chewable Downey…..to be continued….
by Christina Waters | Jan 20, 2010 | Home, Movies |
The words on this promo poster say it all!
Proving that there are plenty of bad film ideas to go around, Denzel Washington hacks his way through post-apocalyptic America armed only with a machete, four or five semi-automatic weapons and a big, sacred book that is somehow going to salvage what remains of Mankind.
The Book of Eli, co-produced by Washington and “directed” by two guys billed as “The Hughes Brothers,” answers the burning question: “What ever happened to Jennifer ‘Fame’ Beals?” Well she turns up at the kept woman of Gary Oldman (who is so severely tic-ridden as to erase all memory of his former cinematic brilliance). Oldman is the honcho of a frontier town that resembles a cross between the cast party of Road Warrior and a Hells Angels convention.
Packs of very dirty men dressed in leather roam what’s left of the world after a nuclear something has destroyed (more…)
