John J. Bennett

Reviews The Artist. Director Michel Hazanavicius is a peerless visual stylist. His leading man Jean DuJardin is a gifted comic actor and an unnatural showman. Together they reinvented the character Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath/OSS 117 and made two deliriously funny spy spoofs bearing his moniker: OSS 117 Cairo, Nest of Spies (2006) and OSS […]

Reviews Joyful Noise. It probably doesn’t come as any surprise that Joyful Noise isn’t exactly in my wheelhouse. I keep an open mind, and try not to let skepticism mar my movie-going experience, but I can only do so much. I’m not much for gospel choirs or musicals. Even less so musicals about gospel choirs, […]

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY. Like his 2008 film Let The Right One In, Swedish director Tomas Alfredson’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is beautifully composed and photographed. Permeated with an air of impending doom, this film is fully realized and completely effective, if at times painfully slow. Tinker is adapted from the John le Carré novel, […]

Reviews WAR HORSE is a determined, almost defiant exercise in old-fashioned restraint by a director not especially known for it. I’ll give credit where credit is due: Steven Spielberg basically invented the summer blockbuster, and I love some of his early work (Duel, Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark), but his schmaltzy, maudlin middle-period coincided […]

  THE SITTER. If you’re among the David Gordon Green faithful, and are therefore holding out some germ of hope that he’ll make a return to the ruminative, atmospheric style of his early work (George Washington, All The Real Girls), you will likely be disappointed by The Sitter. If instead you’re the kind of person […]

  Reviews THE WAY. Within the Sheen/Estevez dynasty, younger, louder brother Charlie has been taking his share of the spotlight lately. Meanwhile, elder Emilio has been quietly building a career as a writer and director, starting in 1986 with Wisdom and carrying through to The Way, now playing at the Minor. I’m a big fan […]

  Reviews HUGO. For a while, I was frustrated with Martin Scorsese. Duped by my fixation on the visual and narrative style of Goodfellas (my jumping-off point), I mistakenly thought he’d taken a turn for the blander in his later films. I realize now that his inimitable directing style has evolved to suit each script […]

  REVIEWS THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN — PART ONE. As I sat in a theater super-heated by the hummingbird metabolisms of 150 tweens, watching end-credits roll, I considered this: I had just sat through my fourth *Twilight* movie in the space of a week. This last is the penultimate installment in the series, the […]

  Reviews J. EDGAR. J. Edgar Hoover was a singular figure in 20th Century American history. In his near half-century tenure as director of the FBI, he grew the organization from a nearly impotent fledgling department into the crime-bustin’ juggernaut it is today. He modernized criminal investigation, introducing databases, forensic detection and a host of […]

REVIEWS A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas. I’m kind of a sucker for Christmas movies. And buddy comedies, and stoner pictures. So, despite the fact that I checked out of the Harold and Kumar franchise shortly after being nonplussed by the trip to White Castle, I was prepared to enjoy this one, even if […]

  FOOTLOOSE. I’m old enough to remember the original Footloose (1984), lo these many years later, but young enough to have lost any significant nostalgia for it. Still and all, writer/director Craig Brewer’s remake is such a pallid imitation of a familiar movie that it’s surprising he got away with making it. The biggest flaw […]