Wall E

If you are like me and wonder how Pixar can pull off one creative blockbuster after another, here is an interesting peek behind the scenes of the studio.  In an interview the writer and director of Finding Nemo and Wall E, Andrew Stanton, intimates that Finding Nemo did not work as a film until very image [Read More]

300

300 is different from any movie I had seen before.  The closest would be Chinese films such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with the magical fighting scenes. Yet these Chinese films still are far from where 300 takes you. For my eyes, the film pushes boundaries of cinema as an art form. 300 tells the image [Read More]

Mama Mia!

Mamia Mia!, this was worse than I had feared.  I did not even get a great tour of the Greek islands. I was the first to leave the cinema. Now I was watching people coming out.  Women smiled, men looked pained, albeit a bit proud they took their lady to the movies.  Cinema, in my image [Read More]

Tropic Thunder

There is a reason why in most films different people take on the roles of the writer, director,  and the lead actor: Rarely is one and the same person equally good at all these jobs.  Tropic Thunder stars Ben Stiller, and is written and directed by Ben Stiller. That was a mistake. When I saw image [Read More]

The Dark Knight

When Heath Ledger died early this year, I was deeply disturbed by his death.  I surprised myself by the strength of my sadness.  What made it so difficult to accept his untimely death was my sense that this extraordinary talent could have mesmerized us for decades to come with his acting skills. The best thing image [Read More]

Sex and the City

The four ladies of HBO’s “Sex and the City” comedy series continue their adventure in New York. The writers infused the film with a good sense of fun. At times it is also a bit sexually daring, but for the most part it falls into the genre of a tame romantic comedy. This is not image [Read More]

Penelope

My expectations about this airplane film were modest. A family is cursed and the fist female bay will be born with a pig’s nose. Ok. A little children’s movie. Yet to my surprise Penelope is one of the most clever films I have seen in a while. It is Cinderella, Romeo and Julia, Miss Piggy image [Read More]

We Own the Night

We Own the Night transports you back into the disco era. Drugs were a big part the Studio 54 scene (I visited famous disco once before it closed and marveled about Grace Jones’s rooftop haircut). One son of a family of senior police officials son a night club. Before long he has to choose image [Read More]

I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry

I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry reminded me of an episode of the Love Boat in the 1980s.  After yet another romantic disappointment, a lady decides that she had it with men. She meets a notorious womanizer on the boat. To get the woman “into the sack”, the gigolo plays the role of a image [Read More]