Reviews THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE. I greet this release with markedly lower enthusiasm than, apparently, the rest of the movie-going world. Not that I harbor any ill will toward the franchise; it just doesn’t do a whole lot for me. The furor over the book series passed me by almost entirely, though another member […]
John J. Bennett
Posted inArts + Scene
Better Men
Reviews THE BEST MAN HOLIDAY. It’s not absolutely necessary to see The Best Man (1999) to get something out of this; I managed to enjoy it without even knowing it was a sequel. However, since it eschews helpful exposition on the way to a ponderous two-hour-plus running time, the uninitiated (me included) may spend some […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Timed Out
Previews ABOUT TIME. I like Rachel McAdams and dislike most of her movies in nearly equal measure. Not that she picks bad projects, but she tends not to stray from the very-beaten path of romantic comedy. And it is a rare rom-com indeed that satisfies my weird predilections. I harbored some hope for About Time, […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Game On
Reviews ENDER’S GAME. I’ll go ahead and say it: I’ve never read Ender’s Game. It didn’t interest me in the first place, and now that author Orson Scott Card insists on disseminating his socio-political beliefs, I’m less inclined than ever to pick it up. Petty, childish rationale, I admit, and one I abandoned rather easily […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Risky Stunts
Reviews THE COUNSELOR. Cormac McCarthy will go down as one of America’s immortal literary voices. But that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a great screenwriter. Case in point: this new venture with director Ridley Scott. Sure, it’s got McCarthy trademarks in spades. But his tendencies toward misanthropy, deceptively simple prose (at least in his later work), […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Failed Escape
Reviews ESCAPE PLAN. I cut my teeth on big bloody action stuff like First Blood (1982) and Commando (1985), then followed Stallone and Schwarzenegger on to the mid-career weirdness of Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (1992) and Junior (1994), respectively. Steeped as I am in the questionable cultural currency of their movies, chances are […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Phillips thrills, Machete is dull
Reviews CAPTAIN PHILLIPS. Director Paul Greengrass has a dead-accurate, razor-edged sense of story. One could say he makes action movies (the second and third Bourne installments, Green Zone), but that doesn’t quite get it. He distills the essential elements of large-scale conflict into absorbing, often impossibly intense human dramas. Despite taking on big stories about […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Lost in Space
Reviews GRAVITY. Critics have complained that Alfonso Cuaron and director of photography Emmanuel Lubezki tried too hard with the cinematography in Children of Men, and that their meticulously designed tracking shots, little visual masterpieces, take us out of the story rather than drawing us in. But Cuaron’s reverence for story and character is well-served and […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Man Up
Reviews DON JON. My affinity for Joseph Gordon-Levitt predisposed me to enjoy this, his debut as writer-director. Add in the ubiquitous trailer with its hypnotic repetition and slick pacing, and I had set up some mighty high expectations. The actual movie is entertaining and enjoyable, and I liked it very much, but in a different […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Captive Audience
Reviews PRISONERS. When we were small, my brother and I decided to play a joke on our parents and disappear for a while. This only amounted to a couple of hours hiding out above the garage, and I couldn’t understand why Dad was so upset when he found us. A few decades of living have […]
Posted inArts + Scene
A Good Scare
INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 2. So, I’ve been developing a program to scare the shit out of myself. I start by waking up to a sunny day with a head full of last night’s whiskey fumes. I supplement this discomfort with several cups of dangerously hot, coal-black coffee. Then, with my heart rate spiked, my paranoia roaring, […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Spectacular
THE SPECTACULAR NOW. This film brought me closer to a public emotional outburst than any movie I have ever seen. I tend not to get too misty-eyed in public, but director James Ponsoldt’s heartbreaking, careful meditation on love, loss and adolescent identity hits all the right notes. Sutter Keely (Miles Teller), a supremely easygoing high […]