The franchise started with such promise: a fresh idea, lots of laughs, and almost $500 million at the box office. Part II served up refried ideas, fewer laughs, but enough revenue to make Part III a certainty. Now, the trilogy concludes with a movie that can’t decide what it wants to be: a buddy comedy, a dark crime caper, a road-trip, a chase epic? Maybe Three Men and a Psycho?
Imagine a time when every day is the 4th of July and every night is New Year’s Eve. Imagine a place filled with manic energy and garish opulence. Welcome to the first half of The Great Gatsby. This is really a story in two parts – one fueled by grand decadence, one told on a more human scale.
“You can’t get to my age without some regrets,” Sharon (Susan Sarandon) says. “But I would do it all again. Better. Smarter. I would do it all again.” This is a movie about lives led and lies told, choices made and secrets kept.
Dino, I don’t think we’re in Bedrock anymore. I went to The Croods expecting an update of The Flintstones – and got something else entirely. What we have here is a stylish and sophisticated work of animation.
In the Movie Bible according to Michael Bay, this movie’s director, the first – maybe only – commandment is this: Thou shalt do everything to excess or thou shalt not bother doing it at all.
Here is a quote from this film, spoken by Tom Cruise’s character, Jack Harper. It gives you an idea of what we’re dealing with: “If we have souls, they're made of the love we share. Undimmed by time, unbound by death.”
The plot is a bit preposterous and some of the violence is way, way over the top, but this is actually a well made, if copycat movie. It will remind you of so many others – the original Die Hard comes to mind – but the movie does get you thinking about the kind of decisions the President (or, in this case, the ‘acting President’) has to make – and for the first time in a very long time, I actually liked Gerard Butler in a role.
Mud is a tale of elemental things -- falling in love, and putting your faith in others, and spending summer days with your best friend when you’re fourteen years old.
Like the paintings Pierre-Auguste Renoir created, this is a movie filled with visual splendor.
I usually use this space for announcements about projects I am shooting or screenings of films I have shot. But I have had so much interest in my camera tests for the new Sony F55, that I wanted to share my results publicly.
