Review: Hobo with a Shotgun

Review: Hobo with a Shotgun B+: An all-or-nothing gambit from the title on down.Like last year’s Machete, Jason Eisener’s Hobo with a Shotgun originated from a fake trailer created for 2007’s Grindhouse. Unlike Machete, Hobo feels like an honest-to-goodness exploitation flick unleashed from the grimy depths of the ‘70s and ‘80s, as opposed to a post-post-modern wink-fest. Better yet, this terrifically mean-spirited and ultra-violent piece of...

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Cannes Review: Midnight in Paris

Cannes Review: Midnight in Paris A: A real treat, a buttery and flaky croissant.Woody Allen’s latest film, Midnight in Paris, opens with a visual love letter to the city. Images of the Eiffel Tower, strolls along the Champs-Élysées, close-ups on the Arc de Triomphe which gracefully segue into the glass pyramids of the Louvre — Allen has thrown in all the iconic imagery that makes Paris as much an ideal as it is a city. It’s also clear from the...

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Cannes Review: Sleeping Beauty Comatizes

Cannes Review: Sleeping Beauty ComatizesD-: A film where nothing ever happens, and yet everything is mean-spirited.Sleeping Beauty was the worst of times, and it was the worst of times. There were many moments I thought it wouldn’t end. But it did end, and perhaps that’s a lesson of hope for us all: No matter how ill-suited you are to any given form of entertainment, it will likely expire before you do. Result! Emily Browning is a poor college...

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Cannes Review: Restless Is Cute with a Dollop of Drama

Cannes Review: Restless Is Cute with a Dollop of Drama B-: Undeniably sweet and tender, a platform for two young and talented actors.We’ve seen it before: boy meets girl while crashing a funeral (you may recall this was Will Ferrell’s method in Wedding Crashers). But in this case the particulars are a little smudged, the boy doesn’t really want to be pursued, and the girl is hiding something. A big spoilery something. They meet, things are alternately...

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Review: Everything Must Go is Serious Yet Likable

Review: Everything Must Go is Serious Yet Likable B+: A confident transitional step for Will Ferrell.Though he has dabbled in light drama, Will Ferrell has yet to try the sort of intensely serious role that many of his comic peers have taken on. Everything Must Go still isn’t his grab for an Oscar (and I’m in no hurry to see him make one), but it is a confident transitional step in that direction, should he decide he wants to pull a Sandler...

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Review: Bridesmaids Is a Treat

Review: Bridesmaids Is a Treat A: A few times the audience laughed so loud you couldn’t hear the next line.At first glance, Bridesmaids might seem like another dopey rom-com movie about weddings, most likely filled with some rehashed predictable dreck. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Bridesmaids takes the old and makes it new again, breathing life back into a genre that had just about been trodden into the ground. Feeling like...

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Review: I Confess, Priest Isn’t Very Good

Review: I Confess, Priest Isn’t Very Good C: A movie about a priest fighting vampires should be less boring than this.This week’s post-apocalyptic movie about the battle between humans and vampires is called Priest. It stars Paul Bettany as a priest who defies his religious superiors to prevent the slaughter of innocents. It is directed by Scott Stewart, whose last film, Legion, was completely different. It starred Paul Bettany as an angel who...

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Review: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides Loses That Loving Feeling

Review: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides Loses That Loving Feeling C: We can surmise Johnny Depp was handed the hat, saw ocean, and gave it a whirl.Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is a pretty good example of a creative team knowing all the requisite dance steps … but then completely missing the motivation and spirit of the dance itself. The cast and crew are game, but Captain Jack Sparrow has been neutered, and all the...

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Cannes Review: Attack the Block is Loads of Fun

Cannes Review: Attack the Block is Loads of Fun B+: Lawlessness versus savagery, no prisoners, no mercy.Finally, a film that portrays the irrational hubris of youth as a net positive. Attack the Block, bathed in techno and rap, long on laughs and attitude, and boldly innovative while still flashily acknowledging those that have come before — this is a movie that should (and deserves to) foster a cult audience. We need more films in the spirit...

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Cannes Review: The Artist is a Delight The Artist

Cannes Review: The Artist is a Delight A: Highly recommended for any serious fan of cinema.There’s no particular reason The Artist should work. It’s a predominantly silent film, in black and white, with lead actors you likely haven’t seen before. And yet, it’s delightful, simply lovely, a tribute to the magic that occasionally takes place when inspiration meets resources.The year is 1927, and silent films are still all the rage. Actor George...

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Cannes Review: Tree of Life

Cannes Review: Tree of Life B: The ambition of Tree of Life is sweeping and robust.Tree of Life is loaded with concepts. It’s also visually stunning, Malick remains atop the field, conceiving and executing shots with genius-level precision. So what keeps the door barred on the “modern masterpiece” label? The lack of cohesion and the failure to connect. As such, Tree of Life is a flawed though intensely interesting experience at the theater....

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Six Movies That Could Disappoint This Summer

Six Movies That Could Disappoint This Summer As we’re well aware, every summer brings highly anticipated movie after highly anticipated movie. But never are they all as fantastic as we hope they’ll be. While I absolutely enjoyed Iron Man 2last year, I know I was in the minority. And let’s not forget Spider-Man 3, released in 2007, which even I, one who loves all, can admit was awful. So which movies this summer will cause us to awkwardly leave...

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Quentin Tarantino, Community, and the Art of the Homage

Quentin Tarantino, Community, and the Art of the Homage Editor’s Note: Following up on Elisabeth Rappe’s “Should Quentin Tarantino Stop Homaging?” article, here’s another take on our good buddy QT from LoquaciousMuse.Being a fan of Quentin Tarantino can be a perilous place. For people like me, his work is gold; I’ve been obsessed with most — or liked a lot, at least — everything he’s ever touched. He speaks my language. He shares my taste. He...

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First Photo of Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss

First Photo of Jennifer Lawrence as KatnissEntertainment Weekly has the first image of Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss in The Hunger Games movie. Our take? So far, so good. Check out the full-sized version below:...

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Box Office: Thor Repeats as Champ

Box Office: Thor Repeats as Champ Thor only dropped 47.5 percent in its second weekend to earn an estimated $34.5 million, repeating as box office champion. The film also hit $300 million worldwide, passing The Incredible Hulk and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer in the Marvel canon. The other big news amongst the new wide releases was Bridesmaids strong $24.4m opening, the film had been projected by analysts in the high teens.Here’s...

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Should Quentin Tarantino Stop Homaging?

Should Quentin Tarantino Stop Homaging? The announcement of a new Quentin Tarantino film comes with oohs, aahs, and post-Kill Bill, a lot of bitter commentary on his gleefully referential style. (Or, as they say in French, homages.) One can’t take Internet discussion boards too seriously, but it would appear that a certain segment of cinephiles finds it cool and refined to hate on Tarantino for such things. Since his latest script, Django Unchained,...

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Top Seven: Paul Bettany

Top Seven: Paul Bettany With Priest opening this weekend, we took it upon ourselves to review the oeuvre of its star, Paul Bettany, and determine which of his films have been strongest. The past half decade hasn’t been too kind to Bettany critically, and Priest may not break him very far out of that mold, as fun as it seems to be. But when we look back and remind ourselves of what happens when he makes the right decisions, things start looking...

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What to Expect When You’re Expecting Transformers: Dark of the Moon

What to Expect When You’re Expecting Transformers: Dark of the Moon Production on a third Transformers movie began pretty much as soon as the second one made $100 million, which was about four hours after it opened. That means they’ve had two years to fine-tune and perfect the final chapter in the trilogy, to make every detail conform to Michael Bay’s overarching vision. Given how much money has been spent on it, one assumes the new film has...

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2011 SIFF Sneak Peak

2011 SIFF Sneak Peak The Seattle International Film Festival is coming to town — again. So we’re making a list, and er … checking it twice, of films that are naughty and nice. Well, films that seem like they could be nice. If after we’ve screened them, they turn out to be really bad (the kind whose filmmakers deserve a bank account full of coal instead of ticket dollars) we’ll be sure to warn you.Until then, we’ve served up a smattering of...

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