Oscar-winning screenwriter Akiva Goldsman (A Beautiful Mind) makes his feature directorial debut with this adaptation of Mark Helprin's 800-page bestseller from 1983. Under ordinary circumstances, film adaptations are risky; the abundance of material in Helprin's novel should have made this one impossible. Still, Goldsman forged ahead, whether through hubris or optimism, and the result is as sweeping and ridiculous as anticipated. Read the full review at KCActive.com.
The Gloria of the title is a 58-year-old divorcée (Paulina Garcia) who when we first meet seems like a loser. Unfashionable, overly friendly, sad. We see her tipsily trip on her way home to her empty apartment where her sleep is held hostage by the ranting of an angry upstairs neighbor. But soon, a different picture of Gloria emerges: adventurous, compassionate, fun. Read the full review at KCActive.com.
The story is as old as storytelling: their families for whatever reason keep Young lovers apart. But Scott Spencer's 1979 novel added an obstruction not rooted in class, race or family feud. His male lead posed an actual danger to his partner. But in 1981 Franco Zeffirelli offered a watered-down adaptation that more people remember for its title song duet between Diana Ross and Lionel Richie. And now writer/director Shana Fest (Country Strong) dilutes it further. Read the full review at KCActive.com.
George Clooney stars and directs in this The Dirty Dozen-inspired tale that he co-wrote with Grant Heslov. Except instead of a motley group of 12 felons on a top-secret suicide mission, his six troops — seven including Clooney — are artists, conservators, architects and curators tasked with preserving the West’s cultural artifacts from bombing by their own army and allies as well as Nazi hoarding during WWII. This treasure hunt, based on the true story of a much more ambitious mission by a much larger platoon and written about by Robert M. Edsel with Bret Witter, could make a really good movie full of suspense and triumphant moments driven by expert, esoteric knowledge. This is not that movie. Read the full review on KCActive.com.
A mean-spirited, sloppy debut from writer/director Tom Gormican overestimates its dexterity in upending the romantic comedy by casting male actors in lead roles. With this version of “bromantic comedy,” Gormican puts himself in a bind: He’s following the genre’s conventions, and even making references to specific scenes in iconic movies, while being cruelly snide about them. The result is a brazenly misogynistic one-upmanship, as if saying “anything you can do, we can do better.” Read my full review on KCActive.com.
Based on the 1990 biography by Claire Tomalin, Abi Morgan’s screenplay offers two conflicting interpretations. In one, Nelly and Dickens share an exclusive close rapport, and she is a willing partner in their unsanctioned conjugality. The other interpretation trades this common-law affability for a more sinister, one-sided grooming. Read my full review on KCActive.com.
There’s no escape from the close meanness in the film adaptation of Tracy Letts’ 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, August: Osage County. Even by Letts’ standards — he’s the mastermind behind Bug, the accomplished 2006 one-room paranoid freak-out directed by William Friedkin and starring Ashley Judd and Michael Shannon — this is an oppressive and histrionic affair. Read the rest of the review here.
Ben Stiller’s update of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is an introvert’s worst nightmare. For all its daring rescues of three-legged dogs and superhero chase scenes, the secret life referred to in the title isn’t nearly as remarkable as the one he lives without the help of CGI. But of course, that’s not realized until the end, after he’s been forced on adventures, both imagined and real, that lead him to this predictable conclusion. Read the full review here.
Martin Scorsese brings yet another version of hectoring masculinity to the big screen. But in this most recent release, the director of Raging Bull and Goodfellasprovides three hours of greed-fueled, drug-addled buffoonery with only a token attempt at tempering the frat boy antics with real-world consequences. Read the full review here.
Director David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook, The Fighter) has made a career out of championing the underdog. His latest film, rewritten from a script inspired by the 1978 Abscam sting operation by Eric Singer, makes heroes of small-time grifters conscripted into an FBI sting operation. But like the theme obsessively repeated throughout the movie, there’s something rotten underneath this slick production. Read the full review here.
To ensure her intrepid nanny gets the proper dry treatment — no “silly cartoons” — Travers spends two weeks in 1961 in Los Angeles on the Disney lot duking it out with Disney, screenwriter Don DaGradi (Bradley Whitford) and song and lyrics men the Sherman brothers (B.J. Novak and Jason Schwartzman). All too brief, this section never realizes its potential for great insight into the creative process or even the truer, sadder story — how Travers lost the battle for the soul of Mary Poppins. Read the full review here.
To describe the most recent release by the Coen brothers as a “shaggy dog” story is to deny its main, and possibly only, message. The watching of the film requires patience. For much of it, the lead — not ever hero enough to be anti-hero — is caught in an ever-deepening downward spiral, exacerbated by the churlishness he mistakes for pride. But just when all seems drawn-out and pointless, there’s a powerful existential shift that brings meaning to all that has come before. Read the full review here.
