Cinemanic Reviews

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Archive for the month “April, 2012”

29 Apr 2012
2 Comments

Jumping the Broom

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Bottom Line: Tries to jump nice and clean, but gets its shoe caught.

Directed by: Salim Akil
Starring: Angela Bassett, Laz Alonso, Paula Patton

Literally black comedy (though lacking in humor) about Sabrina (Paula Patton) and Jason (Laz Alonso). Sabrina is an uptown, rich, bilingual woman, whereas Jason is a lower class fellow from the ghetto area of Brooklyn. The two are planning their wedding, and a problem arises when Jason’s mother begins obsessing over jumping the broom, which the two had not at all planned on. Jumping the broom is a tradition at African-American weddings that traces black to the days of American Civil War and slavery. Similar to other traditions such as glass-breaking at a Jewish wedding, it gets its name because the wedding ends with the couple jumping over a broom and proceeding down the aisle.

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Posted in Comedy, Drama, Romance, [Film Reviews] and tagged
28 Apr 2012
13 Comments

La Vie en rose

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Bottom Line: La Vie en rose est un trés bon film!!

“Les Américains veulent beautés, pas moi. Je ne suis pas la bombe parisienne qu’ils attendaient. Pouvez-vous me voir comme un chorus girl? Où est ma plume dans le cul? Ils pensent que je suis triste, ils sont muets. Je ne vous y connecter.” –Marion Cotillard as Édith Piaf

Directed by: Olivier Dahan
Starring: Marion Cotillard, Pascal Greggory, Sylvie Testud

Enticing biopic of Édith Piaf (Marion Cotillard), perhaps France’s most influential icon in the field of musical ballads. Melancholy music drama particularizes the singer’s entire life in a nonlinear fashion: from her 1915 birth into a poverty-stricken family; to her recognition at age ten for her spontaneous rendition of “La Marseillaise”, the French national anthem; to her initial recording of her signature piece “La Vie en rose” in 1947; to her later years plagued by liver cancer.

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Posted in Biography, Drama, History, Music/Musical, [Film Reviews] and tagged
28 Apr 2012
11 Comments

The King of Comedy

Bottom Line: This “king” was sadly overlooked.

Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Jerry Lewis, Robert De Niro, Sandra Bernhard

Amusing misadventures of Rupert Pupkin (Robert De Niro) and his involvement with fictional stand-up comic Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis). Langford is the host of his own television show, The Jerry Langford Show, and on each program, he features a different guest as a so-called “King of Comedy”. Pupkin, a man who at thirtysomething still lives with his mother, has lived his entire life aspiring to appear as a guest just once, obsessing nonstop over Langford in ways so far as putting his frame on cardboard standups. Now, Pupkin decides to meet his idol along with another fan, Masha (Sandra Bernhard). The two stalk him pervasively, but when there are certain restraints set, they decide to resort to kidnapping him.

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Posted in Comedy, Drama, [Film Reviews] and tagged
27 Apr 2012
12 Comments

The Ghost Writer

Bottom Line: Well, everybody’s “write” about one thing: Roman Polanski can direct well.

“Well all the words are there, they’re just in the wrong order.” –Ewan McGregor as the Ghost

Directed by: Roman Polanski
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Olivia Williams, Pierce Brosnan

Engaging political thriller tells the story of an unnamed man (Ewan McGregor) who is hired as the ghostwriter for the memoirs of fictional former British Prime Minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan), after the previous man, a lifelong aide of Lang’s, dies in an unexplained event. Despite a predicted $250,000 outcome of the project, the ghostwriter is on a tight schedule, and his life, he fears, may be at a serious risk.

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Posted in Mystery, Thriller, [Film Reviews] and tagged
24 Apr 2012
16 Comments

The Three Stooges

Bottom Line: The Three Stooges is soitenly hilarious, and “Moe” than one would expect, but peppered with faults.

“Mind your p’s and q’s.” –Chris Diamantopoulos as Moe
“Don’t forget to dot the i’s.” –Will Sasso as Curly
“Soitenly!” –Chris Diamantopoulos as Moe

Directed by: Bobby Farrelly, Peter Farrelly
Starring: Chris Diamontopoulos, Jane Lynch, Sean Hayes, Will Sasso

Surprisingly decent comedy resurrects the classic black-and-white television skit of the same name. The lineup for The Three Stooges has varied quite widely, especially for an act that consists of merely three comedians. When the act started in 1925, the three were Moe, Shemp, and Larry; when it said goodbye in the early ’70s, the lineup consisted of Moe, Larry, and Curly Joe. While offering a bit of a twist, the film focuses on the most famous arrangement, which ran from 1932 through 1946: Moe, Larry, and Curly. The story takes it own route. It starts out by showing the Stooges in childhood, living at an orphanage run by nuns. 25 years later, they have reached grown-up idiothood, and that orphanage is shutting down due to economical issues. The Stooges learn that it will cost $830,000 to save the building, and they immediately get out, offering to work for anyone who will pay them that amount of money. Little do they know this will involve them in the predicaments of a murder plot and a starring role on reality TV.

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Posted in Comedy, [Film Reviews] and tagged
23 Apr 2012
11 Comments

The Adjustment Bureau

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Bottom Line: Great premise, and very engaging, but everything else is a disappointment.

Directed by: George Nolfi
Starring: Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Michael Kelly

Philip K. Dick strikes again. Now I know that when I say something like “strikes again,” it implies that he is well-known, yet I am well aware many of you are likely scratching your heads wondering, “Who is this Dick you speak of?” Maybe the name isn’t familiar, but I guarantee the other films he has been associated with are beyond merely familiar: BLADE RUNNER, a dystopian flick about the last man of the eponymous Unit who must save the world from annihilation; NEXT, about a man who can travel back in time just far enough to undo and redo his previous actions (among other things); TOTAL RECALL, about a man who is in search of his true identity as well as the reason for his memory wipeout; MINORITY REPORT, a futuristic movie about police who stop crimes before they actually take place. In short, he is often considered the most quintessential science fiction writer ever. You could argue that Asimov and Bradbury have a sufficient rationale to hold that title, as well, but unlike those two, Dick’s stories and premises remain far from clichéd and quotidian, even today. The plot he provided for last year’s THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU is no BLADE RUNNER, but it’s endlessly interesting. In this romantic action thriller (yes, it is an odd blend of genres), our two protagonists are David Norris (Matt Damon) and Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt). The former is a politician running for the New York Senate, the latter is a ballerina, and the two are trying to hide a relationship. Meanwhile, there are outside forces desiring to break the two up, tracking them down and spying on them at nearly all times.

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Posted in Action, Romance, Science Fiction, Thriller, [Film Reviews] and tagged
22 Apr 2012
14 Comments

Moon

Bottom Line: Very, very unique. Highly recommended.

“GERTY, is there someone else in the room?” –Sam Rockwell as Sam Bell

Directed by: Duncan Jones
Starring: Dominique McElligott, Kevin Spacey, Sam Rockwell

Electrifying sci-fi saga of Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell), an astronaut near the end of his three-year stay on the moon. He is alone with his helpful android GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey), and is frequently engaging in video chats back home to his Earth-dwelling family. During this preface of the film, we begin to wonder how and why Sam does not seem to already feel autophobic; it’s not long before this inevitable fear is installed. But it isn’t installed in any way we would expect it. When you turn on a movie about a guy stuck on the moon, you’d expect some fearful anecdotes among the spectra of cabin fever or aliens. You could say it’s a bit of a combination of the two: Sam finds a bruised body hidden within the boundaries of his spacecraft, and is informed that it is Sam Bell–himself. Now, he enters an unforeseen psychological state of extreme hallucination, a larger problem for him to worry about than getting back to Earth safely.

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Posted in Adventure, Drama, Mystery, Science Fiction, [Film Reviews] and tagged
22 Apr 2012
2 Comments

Hell’s Angels

Bottom Line: A cinematic war classic.

Directed by: Howard Hughes
Starring: Ben Lyon, James Hall, Jean Harlow

War is hell. Don’t tell me you haven’t heard that phrase before, or I’ll ask you who the war you think you are. In this movie, there are the men who have enlisted in the war, and then there are their women–hell’s angels. Set around World War I, this vintage piece is centered on a few men who have gone away to war, but more importantly, their wives and girlfriends. Clearly, it’s not your typical war movie. It stands as an interesting cross between a soap romance and a war drama.

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Posted in Drama, Epic, War, [Film Reviews] and tagged
21 Apr 2012
4 Comments

The Abyss

NOTE: This review regards the “special edition” released five years after the theatrical release. I’ve not seen the original cut, but knowing James Cameron, the difference is most likely another forty minutes of special effects to amaze a curious sci-fi audience.  As far as running time, the theatrical edition clocks in at two hours, nineteen minutes, whereas the “special edition runs for two hours, fifty-one minutes.

Bottom Line: Time consuming, not the classic I expected, but still pretty interesting.

“…when you look into the abyss, the abyss looks back at you.” –Friedrich Nietzsche

Directed by: James Cameron
Starring: Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Michael Biehn

Leave it to James Cameron when you want an immeasurably large production. And the original cut was just the foreground for what became a grand piece. In most cases, a special edition is a DVD reissue with the addition of extras such as deleted scenes, cast interviews, and director’s commentary. Maybe a subtle six seconds of footage are added. James Cameron brings a whole new definition for this term. 1989 saw the original release of THE ABYSS, with not even two and a half hours of running time. Since then, this has been extended to just short of three hours, in a refurbishment quite unambitiously billed a “special edition”.

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Posted in Action, Adventure, Epic, Science Fiction, Thriller, [Film Reviews] and tagged
20 Apr 2012
18 Comments

7 x 7 Link Award

Wow, is this an unusual day for me.  I tend to say that when bizarre things happen, one after another, like a domino effect, refusing to take a rest until I hit the hay, but today, it was just one event that made this day such an anomaly among my other typical days.  It was because this morning, I woke up to check my email (as usual), and was shocked to discover that Mark Walker, a good friend of mine, had passed on the “7 x 7 Link Award” to me.  There are three rules to this award:

#1: Tell everyone something that no one else knows about you.

#2: Link to one of the posts that I personally think best fits the following categories:
- Most Beautiful Piece
- Most Helpful Piece
- Most Popular Piece
- Most Controversial Piece
- Most Surprisingly Successful Piece
- Most Underrated Piece
- Most Pride-Worthy Piece

#3: Pass this award on to seven other bloggers.

Read on (especially you, bloggers–you may be mentioned in #3) for more!

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