Reel Love

Time Investment: 152 min.
Return on Investment: 150 min.
 
In the Swedish film The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Music Box Films), the character of Lisbeth Salander (the eponymous Girl, played by Noomi Rapace) brings her own beguiling sense of open mystery to a plot already brimming with unanswered questions, unsolved murders and family secrets. Anywhere else, this would probably annoy or tease, but this expertly handled film is a brilliant exception, as is Rapace. From one scene to the next, she is able to exude the boyish don’t-fuck-with-me toughness of a biker dyke followed by the tender—if not exactly feminine—vulnerability of someone who’s been seriously victimized. And even though we don’t see the whole picture of who this person is (we may never be allowed to get that vantage point), we are somehow completely enthralled nonetheless. continue reading »

Time Investment: 101 min.
Return on Investment: 1 min.
 
Perhaps the most derivative, joyless and unimaginative movie-going experience in recent memory, Our Family Wedding (Fox Searchlight Pictures) was nothing less, and nothing more, than My Big Fat Blatino Wedding. And where Greek Wedding managed to win over audiences with its naïve charm, bumbling racial references and good-natured stars, Family Wedding comes off as extremely trite all at once, with overwrought racial overtones and histrionics flying. continue reading »

Time Investment: 140 min.
Return on Investment: 125 min.

Some things never change. Ethan Hawke is still trying to convince us he’s a bad boy, Richard Gere still likes making prostitutes feel like his girlfriends and director Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) is still making movies about good cops going bad—and that’s a good thing in his newest film, Brooklyn’s Finest (Overture). continue reading »

Time Investment: 108 min.
Return on Investment: 65 min.

The idea of Tim Burton adapting Alice in Wonderland (Walt Disney Studios) makes a kind of sense but still raises mixed expectations. Will the visionary add anything new to the tale? continue reading »

Time Investment: 86 min.
Return on Investment: 50 min.
 
The most dangerous subject a documentarian can choose is him or herself. Objectivity is naturally compromised and there’s a high risk of alienating those closest to you. What’s more, when looking into the metaphorical mirror it’s hard to differentiate one strand of your life from another. This is the problem that plagues Prodigal Sons (First Run Features), the debut effort from transgender filmmaker Kimberly Reed. At the outset, it appears Sons will recount Reed’s transformation from male to female as she returns to rural Montana for her 20th high school reunion. But as the story unfolds, we learn Reed’s  struggle is less with her classmates than with her adopted brother, Marc McKerrow, who was left emotionally and mentally unstable after a serious car accident in his early 20s. Marc’s outbursts have soured his relationship with Kim, their mother, Carol, and his own wife and child. Then we learn about Marc’s birth family—a surprise twist—and Sons veers into another direction. continue reading »

Time Investment: 138 min.
Return on Investment: 100 min.


“We all go a little mad sometimes,” Norman Bates says in Alfred Hitchcock’s psychological masterpiece Psycho. But exactly where does going “mad sometimes” end and insanity begin? The blurry line denoting the edge of sanity is at the core of Martin Scorsese’s own Hitchcockian thriller, Shutter Island (Paramount). continue reading »

Time Investment: 90 min.
Return on Investment: 45 min.
 
The Good Guy (Roadside Attractions) is a curious film. Set up like a clichéd New York romantic comedy—the characters live in too-perfect apartments, the guys are too nice to girls they like and the supporting cast is just funny enough to not steal scenes from each other—the film and its title are misleading. And purposely so. The Good Guy isn’t actually a romantic comedy at all—it’s an exploration in untrustworthy narrators, a fact that makes it somewhat hard to like. continue reading »

Time Investment: 95 min.
Return on Investment: 75 min.
 
Having seen Mitchell Lichtenstein’s first feature, the vagina dentata horror flick Teeth, one is not sure what to expect from this pop artist’s son who turned from acting to directing. This sentiment continues to hold true, perhaps more so, for Lichtenstein’s second feature, Happy Tears (Roadside Attractions). continue reading »

Time Investment: 75 min.
Return on Investment: 3 min.
 
You might think that To Die for Tano (Leisure Time Features) is in some way relevant to fans of classic Mafia movies, but you’d be mistaken. That it should even be considered a film is debatable; it’s more like watching Italian public- access television, but in a bad way. This so-called satire of the Sicilian Mafia, and by extension the crime dramas we’ve come to love since the ’70s, never manages to get much further than lowbrow slapstick and over-the-top high jinks. What got me in the seat was the fact that the film was shot right in the heart of Sicily, with many people who may or may not be involved in the actual Mafia, but upon viewing, any authenticity (or picturesque scenery) is dashed by the extremely shoddy production values. Nonetheless, it is sometimes refreshing to see non-actors partake in the action, and the scene in the hair salon with various Italian women—each a sight of hairy realness more glorious than her neighbor—was the lone smirk-inducing moment. The only work of real worth here is the music video within the film for “Tano’s Rap,” which is catchy and gleefully ridiculous. Somehow, Tano was also branded as a homoerotic film, commenting on the hazing that goes on when recruiting for the Mafia. If a few shaggy, sketchy-looking guys dancing in dresses and rubbing their noses together is terribly erotic then, okay, this is a homoerotic film. But not in my book! continue reading »

Time Investment: 90 min.
Return on Investment: 20 min.
 
Probably the best thing one can say about Valentine’s Day is that it’s not as bad as it looks. An ensemble rom-com from Garry Marshall (Pretty Woman) with a no-brainer title doesn’t inspire the highest expectations. The appealing cast—everyone from Julia Roberts and Shirley MacLaine to Jennifer Garner and the Taylors (Swift and Lautner)—is all that salvages this well-intentioned heap of mediocrity. When the script isn’t eye-rollingly cheesy (“Your dad sure knows how to juggle,” quoth Patrick Dempsey’s cheated-on wife in one of the bigger groaners), it’s just plain banal. There are also far too many characters: only a few storylines manage any resonance. (The Taylors’ “arc,” for instance, is pure fluff, and Kathy Bates is wasted in only two scenes.) continue reading »