— by BEV QUESTAD — Some films you just can’t rate. They are too personal, too heartbreaking and too true. But when you go to film festivals, that’s what the audience is asked to do. Rate each movie on a basis of one (low) to five. So what do you do about “Son of Babylon?” [&helli[...]
Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Under Review: ‘Get Him to the Greek’
— by ADAM POYNTER — Springing to life from the brilliant minds of Judd Apatow, Jason Segel and Nicolas Stoller comes the new comedy “Get Him to the Greek.” It is produced by Apatow (“40 Year Old Virgin,” “Knocked Up,” “Superbad,” “Forgetting [...]
Under Review: ‘Splice’
— by ADAM POYNTER — Definition: SPLICE — to unite or join together different parts. Genetics: to join different segments of DNA together to create a new entity. That is exactly what happens in the new film “Splice” from Vincenzo Natali (director of 1997’s “Cube”) who [...]
Under Review: ‘Alamar’ (aka ‘To the Sea’)
— by BEV QUESTAD — A delicate, artistic visual poem, “Alamar” is graceful in both its beauty and its depth. There is little dialogue, but long visuals with just the sound of the surf and the lapping of water against a fishing skiff. A pudgy, kind-looking blond Italian woman meets a b[...]
Under Review: ‘Thorn in the Heart’
— by ALLISON HIGGINBOTHAM — Director Michel Gondry is known for his innovative and creative video and film projects. It seems surprising that a documentary about his aunt Suzette would be his latest project. However, after seeing the film, it earns its place among Gondry’s other work a[...]
Under Review: ‘Chloe’
— by MARIUSZ ZUBROWSKI — In a weird way, the main character of the erotic thriller “Chloe” is much like the film itself. Just like Chloe, the Atom Egoyan-helmed motion picture eases into its prey (in this case, the audience) by strutting both intelligence and also thrill. But unlike [...]
Under Review: ‘Birdemic: Shock and Terror’
— by JOEL CRARY — Occasionally when I’m watching a movie, I’ll notice cars driving in the background on a stretch of road that clearly wasn’t blocked off to the general public during the shoot, usually because it’s too great a distance away to be disruptive. I think that people w[...]
Under Review: ‘Sex and the City 2’
— by AMANDA KOEHLER — Shoes. Clothing. Food. Cars. Furniture. Hotels. Above all other themes in “Sex and the City 2” (each marriage has its own rules; deep down, women are the same everywhere), the one director and writer Michael Scott King hits home the most is the theme of [...]
Under Review: ‘Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time’
— by ADAM POYNTER — “The Prince of Persia” is a popular video game series that started in 1989. It was spawned as a basic 2D game and has gone through many improvements in graphics and different storylines since then — 14 to date actually. So it was inevitable that this[...]
Under Review: ‘Mao’s Last Dancer’
— by JOEL CRARY — Here’s what I like about film: It can show me things I wouldn’t normally see, like the ballet. I’ve never been to one. I have only a cursory knowledge of what goes into a pirouette. I couldn’t contribute a single thing to a conversation about “Swan Lake.” Wh[...]
Under Review: ‘Mademoiselle Chambon’
— by RACHEL COYNE — Can anyone do tortured longing and silent agony quite like the French? Probably not, and director-screenwriter Stéphane Brizé’s ill-fated love story, “Mademoiselle Chambon,” is the embodiment of everything you’ve come to expect from French films; it [...]
Under Review: ‘Solitary Man’
— by MARIUSZ ZUBROWSKI — I’ve been writing for It’s Just Movies since Oct. 1 and my first review for the site was one for “A Serious Man.” Since then, my success has sky-rocketed dramatically and I have expanded to other websites and you can now type in my name in Google and have[...]
Under Review: ‘MacGruber’
— by ROB COX — “MacGruber” is a sobering reminder of one of my own basic tenets for reviewing film: an “upper decker” [joke] in the trailer does not a classic comedy make. Sometimes, as with the “MacGruber” trailer, I forget that sage guideline and find myself all a-flutter o[...]
Under Review: ‘Shrek Forever After’
— by ADAM POYNTER — Well our favorite green protagonist is back. Shrek (Mike Myers), Fiona (Cameron Diaz), Donkey (Eddie Murphy) and Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas) have returned in the fourth and final installment in the Shrek franchise, “Shrek Forever After” the first to be releas[...]