Browsing All posts tagged under »Movies«

Nobody’s Fool, book vs. movie

August 13, 2011

5

I had read Richard Russo’s short stories in The New Yorker, but never any of his novels. He was always, to me, one of those authors my mom was always reading. She loved Bridge of Sighs and recommended it to all her friends, and there’s a large hardcover of Empire Falls somewhere in our house. […]

The visual mistake in Too Big to Fail

June 15, 2011

3

I finally got around to watching Too Big to Fail last weekend, and I really enjoyed it. Maybe a bit overblown and hyper-stylized but great acting, swift pace, bla bla bla. I’m not going to bother reviewing the film, because it’s been done enough and it’s easy enough (interesting, too) to find both ravingly positive […]

Catfish

January 31, 2011

4

Who exactly is the monster in the new documentary Catfish? Before seeing the movie, all you hear is that there’s a big secret behind the film, that you don’t want to have it spoiled for you, that it will totally shock/rock your world. The trailer warns “Don’t let anyone tell you what it is.” OMG! […]

The Town

January 3, 2011

9

I’ve heard many people gripe that The Town was formulaic, unoriginal, or had wooden performances. Let me attempt to refute all of those, because The Town was actually a truly impressive directorial accomplishment, a movie I’d place in the pantheon of outstanding contemporary Boston films (The Paper Chase, Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone, The Departed). […]

Inception

July 23, 2010

2

After finally making it to the movie I’ve been salivating over since I first saw that bare-bones, secretive teaser trailer nine months ago, I can’t help but react first and foremost to what it seemed like everyone was talking about in the days after the release: how difficult the movie was to follow. Owen Gleiberman […]

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, book vs. movie

November 28, 2009

2

I saw this movie with a close friend who, like me, is a big fan of David Foster Wallace. Because we both went into the movie with certain expectations and background understanding (having read the stories, loved them, remembered them well), we had requirements for this movie that were almost certain not to be met. […]

Where the Wild Things Are

October 18, 2009

1

I got to see this three days before it came out in theaters, at a special screening. I was very excited. I really, really wanted to like it. Unfortunately, the movie falls incredibly short of all the hype that has been building for so many months. At the very least, the film is visually stunning. […]

Be Kind Rewind

August 7, 2008

4

This is a tough one to review. It’s charming, original, and fun. Coming from any other place, this would be a fabulous movie. However, it’s not just from anyone—it’s Michel Gondry. His resume is so good that I simply couldn’t help having high expectations. And the movie didn’t meet those expectations. My biggest criticism of […]

The Dark Knight

July 30, 2008

6

The praise for this movie was enormous enough to make me pretty skeptical. To my friends who constantly nagged me to see it, I would say things like, “But don’t you think it’s just hyped because Ledger died? I know that’s not politically correct, but come on… if he hadn’t died there wouldn’t have been […]