billkerwin
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| 70 14% | Jurassic World (2015) - Aug 30, 2015
"The script is dumb, but the oafish yet cunning menace of Vincent D"Onofrio kept my interest, and I was delighted when (not really a "spoiler") he was chomped to death by a raptor. The art direction is excellent, and made me believe it was a real theme park (I think I could map it right now, by myself!) Otherwise, not much. The finale is so frenetic and over the top that I started to yawn. The suspenseful attack of the raptors at the end of "Jurassic Park" was a much more effective conclusion."
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| 85 66% | Thieves' Highway (1949) - Aug 30, 2015
"An excellent working class film with a fine Bezzerides script. Conte, Cortese, and Mitchell all give good performances, and Cobb for once does not overact, and makes an able antagonist for Conte. Dassin directs well: the highway sequences and market scenes are fine. It is a pleasure to see characters frankly motivated by money talk about it freely. Ah, but soon the blacklist would come, and this kind of honesty about the workings of the capitalist system would be a thing of the past."
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| 72 19% | Thanks for Sharing (2012) - Aug 30, 2015
"An able cast, not particularly inspired by the thin script and lackluster direction. It could have been daring--as it should be, given the subject matter--but settles for something between creepy and quirky. Ruffalo is good, but not as good as he can be. Paltrow plays a character a lot like herself, and--surprise!--does not succeed in making her interesting or likable. Josh Gad and Pink are defintiely the best things about this film. Especially Pink."
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| 81 48% | The Rewrite (2015) - Jul 19, 2015
"This breezy, pleasant comedy with considerable wit and some laugh-out-loud moments is the fourth collaboration of actor Hugh Grant and writer-director Marc Lawrence, and it is almost as good as "Words and Music." Once again Grant plays a premature curmudgeon hiding his emotional vulnerability beneath a superficial sexism and general crankiness. Marisa Tomei is charming as his love interest, and J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney are superb in supporting roles."
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| 84 60% | Welcome to Me (2015) - Jun 25, 2015
"A bleak comedy with more than a few laughs and a whole lot for us to think about. Wiig is asd good as she has ever been as Alice Klieg, a self-absorbed lottery winner who pays for a TV show about herself, but the movie's highly individualized supporting characters are also strong. Klieg needs them to make her show and her life possible, and by the end even she--as isolated as she is--comes to realize this truth. Robbins, Cusack, Marsden and Cardellini are all very good in support."
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| 75 27% | Cake (2014) - Jun 25, 2015
"Aniston creates a character who is fiercely intelligent and sharply perceptive beneath the pain, the grief, and the opiate haze. The first third of the movie is absorbing, as it reveals little by little how she came to be like this, but the second third just limps along looking for a plot, and the last third is even less focused. Still, Aniston proves she is a fine actress, and deserves better scripts in the future. (Huffman is fine as a therapist, as is Adriana Barraza as the housekeeper.)"
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| 80 42% | The Face Behind the Mask (1941) - Jun 22, 2015
"A fine performance from Lorre, showing great range: he moves from naivete, deranged rage and bitter frustration, to cynicism, hesitant vulnerability, and then to emotional devastation and the resolute impassivity of a despairing man's revenge. Florey--always good when the studios gave him something to work with-cloaks the film in Germanic shadows, creating an effective atmosphere. If only the screenplay--particularly the middle--had been better, this could have been a fine film."
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| 65 8% | This Is Where I Leave You (2014) - May 17, 2015
"Good talent wasted in a mediocre dramedy slackly directed."
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| 93 91% | French Cancan (1955) - May 16, 2015
"A light-hearted, yet ultimately serious, celebration of love and art. It's point of view is autumnal, its mood sweetly melancholic, yet it ends with the most rollicking, dionysian dance you'll ever see. And as usual, Renoir loves each of his characters, despite--perhaps because of--their flaws. Gabin is perfect as the aging entrepreneur, and Maria Felix is imperiously lovely as the belly dancer La Belle Abesse. Watch for Michel Piccoli in a small early role as "The Captain.""
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| 75 27% | Le Beau Serge (1958) - May 07, 2015
"Sometimes called the first New Wave film, it is merely the first feature by a "Cahiers" critic. It lacks a consistent style. Starting out with what is supposed to be Neo-Realism (but which looks more like British Kitchen Sink), it soon darkens and starts looking like Bresson with a few touches of Hitchcock and Lang thrown in. There is one fine sequence at a town dance, and one stunning effect--falling snow used as a transition--but there is not enough here to make a memorable film."
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