Film review: The Guard
November 25, 2011
originally published in the Raleigh News & Observer
It’s like the old Irish proverb says: Nothing can ruin a good cup of tea like running afoul of an international cocaine smuggling ring.
"The Guard"
In the often funny, often indecipherable Irish comedy “The Guard,” Brendan Gleeson plays Sergeant Gerry Boyle, the unorthodox but honest cop who patrols rural County Galway in Ireland. Boyle is no saint – he has a standing arrangement with the local escort service and enjoys sampling the occasional clubs drugs he pulls from the pockets of delinquent teens. When a local crime figure is found with a professionally placed bullet in his head, Boyle regards the death as a proper comeuppance, more a paperwork nuisance than a crime.
But as played by Gleeson in a rich comic performance, Boyle also has a shaggy nobility and a rigid code of honor. He protects the local kids, visits his ailing mum, and stubbornly defies his better-dressed, on-the-take superiors down at headquarters. Boyle’s routine is disrupted, however, with the discovery of a major cocaine smuggling operation in sleepy Galway. Read the rest of this entry »
Film review: The Double Hour
August 2, 2011
originally published in the Raleigh News & Observer
“Nothing is as it seems.”
So reads the marketing tagline for the pleasantly twisty Italian thriller “The Double Hour.”
Love is murder.
And that’s perfectly true for the first four-fifths of the film, which executes a series of clever narrative switchbacks that keep the viewer on high alert. But then something strange happens and everything appears to be exactly what it seems, after all. Or is it?
It’s all part of the fun, I suppose. The set-up: Retired cop Guido (Filippo Timi) meets Slovenian chambermaid Sonia (Ksenia Rappoport) on the speed-dating scene in Turin, Italy.
As the vulnerable widower and the shy immigrant tentatively move toward love, Guido invites Sonia to pass the time with his at his day job – security guard at a largely unoccupied woodland estate.
Here’s where it gets tricky. If you want to see “The Double Hour” and enjoy all its surprises, don’t read any further. A few spoilers follow, but the film has so many twists that revealing a few won’t hurt. Read the rest of this entry »
Film Review: Page One: Inside the New York Times
August 2, 2011
originally published in the Raleigh News & Observer
It’s no secret that the newspaper business is in trouble. Dozens of papers across the U.S. have folded in the face of rising distribution costs, declining ad revenue and competition from digital sources.
“Page One: Inside the New York Times” is a fascinating documentary that roots into the challenges the industry faces, by focusing on America’s flagship newspaper, The New York Times.
You don’t have to be a policy wonk or media nerd to enjoy “Page One” – but it helps. From the first frame, director Andrew Rossi dives into the deep end of the pool, trusting that his audience is sophisticated enough to keep up.
Film review: The Tree of Life
June 27, 2011
originally published in the Raleigh News & Observer
A bold but flawed film from a great director, Terence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” is an enormously ambitious creative vision and the year’s first absolute must-see movie.
Malick is the reclusive American director known for his high-wire act of using experimental film techniques on stories of often epic scope – his most recent being “The Thin Red Line” (1998) and “The New World” (2005).
With “The Tree of Life,” Malick sets up his biggest canvas yet. The film is nothing less than an exploration of the human condition itself. Malick dares to the ask the big questions. Where did we come from? Why are we here? Where is God?
And how does an explosion of cosmic plasma a billion years ago result in a hurt and lost little boy in 1950s Texas?
Film review: Made in Dagenham
June 27, 2011
originally published in the Raleigh News & Observer
Actress Sally Hawkins, the rising star of British cinema, headlines the winning U.K. comedy-drama “Made in Dagenham,” the funniest, warmest, most inspiring drama about ’60s-era British labor disputes ever committed to film.
That’s the marketing challenge the makers of “Dagenham” have on their hands. How do you make a movie about British women and their struggle for equal pay in 1968 come across as appealing, moving and fun? Well, you cast Hawkins in the lead, for starters.
Those who have seen Hawkins’ breakout performance in director Mike Leigh’s 2008 comedy “Happy-Go-Lucky” will know where I’m coming from. Hawkins possesses a special variation on that elusive and precious quality known as That Movie Star Thing.
