Give Me Your Tired, Yearning to Breathe Free
By bukkhead | May 19, 2008
FILM REVIEW: ‘THE VISITOR’
Written and Directed by Thomas McCarthy
Rated PG-13
108 mins.
Walter is a middle aged, middle-class widower, a professor of economics at a college in Connecticut. The only thing interesting about him is that he wants to play the piano. He enjoys classical music and a glass of wine. He is a simple and plain as they come. But The Visitor is not a film about how boring Walter is, or depressed, for that matter. It can’t be said that Walter is stuck in a rut, if only because he has no aspirations to do anything else, no desire or motivation to move outside his carbon-copied routines. Read the rest of this entry »
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It Was a Dark and Stormy Night…
By bukkhead | March 26, 2008
BOOK REVIEW: ‘STORM FRONT’
by Jim Butcher
368 pages
Published by Penguin Putnam, 2000.
I saw the rack of books and I was intrigued to write the author’s name down and Wikipedia him later. That was enough to send me to my library’s website and reserve the book. A few days later, it was ready and waiting for me. A few days later, I finished it, and put the next book in the series on reserve. That was my approach to Jim Butcher, the Dresden Files, and Storm Front. It’s a fun little book. Read the rest of this entry »
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Money for Nothing
By bukkhead | March 24, 2008
FILM REVIEW: ‘THE COUNTERFEITERS’
Written by Stefan Ruzowitzky, based on the book by Adolf Burger.
Directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky
Rated R
98 mins.
Opening shot: the sea, symbol of fortune and destiny. A man sits on the beach, contemplating his past… or his present. Each shapes the other: the past leads us to our present, of course; the present contextualizes our memories of the past. It’s one thing to survive; it’s another thing to have survived—what’s next?
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One Way Or Another, Heads Will Spin. Or Explode. Or Both.
By bukkhead | March 23, 2008
FILM REVIEW: ‘SAW III’
Written by James Wan and Leigh Whannell
Directed by Darren Lynn Bousman
Rated R
113 mins.
I’ve never written a review for this kind of movie before, so let’s see what happens. What’s the appeal of the Saw films? (I hesitate to call them films, but this is a review environment, so I’ll use the nomenclature). I suppose it’s those insidious traps and devices, and of course, the plot twists at the end. They’re almost too expected by now, though, if you put enough time and other movies between the Saw sequels, you should be okay, In Saw III, the other element is furthered, sort of building on the momentum in from Saw 1 and 2: other people. Read the rest of this entry »
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I Crash, You Crash, We all Crash for Paradise
By bukkhead | March 21, 2008
VIDEO GAME REVIEW: ‘BURNOUT PARADISE’
Developed by Criterion Games
Distributed by EA
Platforms: Xbox 360, Playstation 3
Genre: Racer
I got the new Burnout video game, and thought I would talk about that. I got the game on February 2nd, and have played a little each day. For those who don’t know, the Burnout series got it start when they introduced a race game that had you forcibly crashing into other cars in order to gain boost and, of course, win. Since then the game has evolved into something with even more depth and replayability. Read the rest of this entry »
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Even The Title is Hilarious
By bukkhead | March 18, 2008
FILM REVIEW: ‘BLADES OF GLORY’
Written by Jeff Cox and Craig Cox
Directed by Josh Gordon and Will Speck
Rated PG-13
93 mins.
Will Ferrell has hit on a formula: take a goofy profession, one with plenty of esoteric elements, add in a goofy guy, and support him with other goofy guys, and a few babes (but not typical centerfold babes, more the girl-next-door babe). Let the characters do whatever they would do, until the situation devolves and only the expertise of the profession can save the day. That’s a glib way to put it, but then again, these are glib movies. Talladega Nights, Ron Burgundy. Semi Pro, Even Elf and A Night at the Roxbury fit into this, in their own way. These are natural extensions of SNL sketches, with the extra depth that a movie allows. Actually, Ferrell’s not the first to do it: Austin Powers, Happy Gilmore, Superstar… all those SNL actors turned movie stars. But so far, Ferrell’s done it the most consistently, and the best. I watched Blades of Glory recently, and just about had an aneurysm. Read the rest of this entry »
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Neither Vicodin nor Adders
By bukkhead | March 15, 2008
BOOK REVIEW: ‘THE GUN SELLER’
by Hugh Laurie
368 pages
Published by Washington Square Press, 1998.
I don’t know why I have such difficulty writing book reviews. Maybe it’s because I don’t have a mind for details. I do tend to notice things; I just forget them very quickly afterwards. Maybe it’s because I spent all those years in school, studying books, writing as I went, and now I find I can’t recapture that gestalt, since I don’t like to take notes while I read for fun. At any rate, I’m wasting time, and words, now to avoid writing about The Gun Seller. Which is a shame, because it’s a not half-bad book. Read the rest of this entry »
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All Eyes On Me
By bukkhead | March 10, 2008
FILM REVIEW: ‘VANTAGE POINT’
Written by Barry Levy
Directed by Pete Travis
Rated PG-13
90 mins.
How would you make a movie about a period of time that lasts only 25 minutes? You could stretch it out, get all Tom Clancy on the plot and go back to the dark ages if you wanted, setting up a series of otherwise unremarkable coincidences that makes for good flashbacks and that PBS show Connections with James Burke. Or you could go the Rashomon route, telling the same story several times from differing points of view. That’s the methodology of Vantage Point, and, to its credit, comparisons to Kurosawa can end right there, as the effect of this repetition is wholly different than in the 1951 classic. Read the rest of this entry »
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The First Thing We Do, Let’s Kill All the Lawyers
By bukkhead | February 20, 2008
FILM REVIEW: ‘MICHAEL CLAYTON’
Written and Directed by Tony Gilroy
Rated R
119 mins.
Michael Clayton was nominated for an academy award, and after watching it, one wonders why. This would be after one has already seen No Country for Old Men and There Will be Blood, competitors for Best Picture this year. Then one remembers that Juno and Atonement were also nominated, and makes sense. Indeed, once the winner is a foregone conclusion, it behooves the academy to also nominate other quality films. In another year, Michael Clayton might have won for best picture; say, any other year since 1998. Read the rest of this entry »
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Something Borrowed, Something New
By bukkhead | January 28, 2008
FILM REVIEW: ’27 DRESSES’
Written by Aline Brosh McKenna
Directed by Anne Fletcher
Rated PG-13
107 mins.
They’re called chick flicks, and that’s supposed to be disparaging. Or sometimes they’re called formulaic, movies where you know exactly everything that’s going to happen. But movies of this nature shouldn’t be judged on their predictability. Rather, they should be considered on their execution of the formula. Sometimes, you want to see a movie that doesn’t hold any surprises, that doesn’t ask you to make some fantastical acceptance of impossible logic just so that the whole thing “works.” Actually, the irony is that these formulaic movies do portray a fantasy world, one where everything works out in the end, which is sometimes just where you want to be for an hour and a half. Read the rest of this entry »
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