Reel Love

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 »