plus 3, VIDEO - MOVIE REVIEW - ‘Green Zone’ - 2.5 stars out ... - Enterprise |
- VIDEO - MOVIE REVIEW - ‘Green Zone’ - 2.5 stars out ... - Enterprise
- Jennifer Love Hewitt lands gritty movie role as hooker with heart of gold - Monsters and Critics
- Movie review: Our Family Wedding - Chicago Tribune
- Hugo Weaving as Red Skull in CAPTAIN AMERICA Movie? - Newsarama
| VIDEO - MOVIE REVIEW - ‘Green Zone’ - 2.5 stars out ... - Enterprise Posted: 13 Mar 2010 01:24 AM PST If a film as brilliant as the Oscar-winning "Hurt Locker" can't reverse America's apathy toward flicks about Iraq, what chance does an inferior one like the "Green Zone" stand? Frankly, better than you might expect, given the clout Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass built through their collaborations on two of the three "Bourne" films. It's also a plus that the "Green Zone" plays like a spin-off, with Damon again cast as a rogue warrior determined to expose government malfeasance. This time, though, the lies and cover-ups are based in fact, and the central villains aren't some over-zealous black ops, but messieurs Bush and Cheney. Although they aren't identified by name, their presence is as obvious as the mustache on Saddam's face. They take a beating, too, as Greengrass and writer Brian Helgeland ("Mystic River," "L.A. Confidential") none-too-subtly accuse them of not only manufacturing a cause for war, but also fostering an insurgency that led to the unnecessary deaths of thousands of Iraqis and Americans. Wow! Those are some pretty serious charges. Got anything to back them up? Well, yes, if you subscribe to the views of former Washington Post journalist Rajiv Chandrasekaran, as presented in his book, "Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone." How much you enjoy it will largely depend on your political views. If you support our involvement in the Middle East, you'll hate it. If you think we have no business being there, you'll love it. That's because "Green Zone" shows no interest in exploring the gray areas. In fact, it practically wears its partisanship on its sleeve, freely bashing everyone who doesn't subscribe to its anti-Bush, anti-military views. The producers have a right to their opinion. But what doesn't sit well is the treatment of our soldiers, who are largely portrayed as obedient sheep who shoot first and ask questions later. Everyone, that is, but Damon's Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller, or "Chief" as they like to call him. He, it seems, is the only one with enough guts to challenge the brass for answers as to why he and his men are consistently handed "bad intel" in their mission to seek and uncover WMDs in the early days of the Iraq war. Not only does it put Miller's men at risk, it creates an excuse for Greengrass to thrust Damon and the largely nameless, faceless members of his unit into jittery, quick-cut combat scenes in which it's impossible to tell who's shooting at whom and from where. Incoherent action has become par for Greengrass' course, but it's starting to get as stale as the debate over Bush's motives for invading Iraq. Did Greengrass not see "The Hurt Locker" and its expertly crafted scenes that allow tension to slowly build until you can no longer stand the suspense? Obviously not. All Greengrass does is bore you with his generic, over-edited accounts of shootouts and general mayhem. Only when he calms down and allows his actors to take the fore, does the thriller aspect begin to gel. It's pretty compelling, too, with Damon digging deeper and deeper in his search for Magellan, the CIA's chief source of information on the locale of WMDs. It's a quest that gets him shot at, kidnapped and chastised. But it also puts him in the welcome company of Amy Ryan ("Gone Baby Gone") and Brendan Gleeson ("In Bruges"), both perfectly cast as a Judith Miller-type reporter for the Washington Post and a disgruntled CIA grunt fed up with all the misinformation. Their characters do what they can to help Damon, but from a viewer standpoint it isn't enough. But given Greengrass' penchant for keeping the camera focused on Damon, they should consider themselves lucky to get any screen time at all. Ditto for Greg Kinnear as the Bremer-like Carl Poundstone, and Khalid Abdalla as Damon's one-legged Iraqi interpreter. Movie review - THE GREEN ZONE - (R for violence and language.) Cast includes Matt Damon, Amy Ryan and Brendan Gleeson. Directed by Paul Greengrass. 2.5 stars out of 4. Reach Al Alexander at aalexander@ledger.com. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Jennifer Love Hewitt lands gritty movie role as hooker with heart of gold - Monsters and Critics Posted: 12 Mar 2010 06:47 AM PST   Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Movie review: Our Family Wedding - Chicago Tribune Posted: 10 Mar 2010 02:35 PM PST Instead of invitations, they should be sending out apologies for "Our Family Wedding," a cake and kisses comedy that has disaster written all over it. Race as much as romance is at the heart of the matter, with director Rick Famuyiwa playing that card in nearly every scene. The film stars America Ferrera, who's finishing up her final lap on ABC's "Ugly Betty," and Lance Gross, a resident of Tyler Perry's "House of Payne," as the secretly betrothed Lucia and Marcus. In case no one notices that she is Hispanic and he is African-American, Lucia's grandmother (Lupe Ontiveros) is there to screech, "He's black," and then faint. The film kicks off with the couple traveling to Los Angeles to meet the parents and get married on the fly. But the family conflicts and the movie's problems start hours before that first family gathering because the real couple wreaking havoc here are the dads, Brad Boyd ( Forest Whitaker) and Miguel Ramirez (stand-up comic Carlos Mencia). They even get the movie's meet-cute moment — Brad's vintage Aston Martin is parked in a loading zone, and Miguel is manning the tow truck that's about to haul it away. Instead of hilarity ensuing, Miguel and Brad pull out nearly every racial slur in the book, a lot of half-baked slapstick and even more macho posturing in an effort to entertain. There is also the typical assortment of wedding-related problems — the dress, the venue, the seating arrangements, the onslaught of crazy relatives and, of course, the cost. The real cost, though, is the wasted opportunity to take a smart cut at a subject so thematically rich and so rarely explored by Hollywood. Instead, the warring families, the interracial romance, the inherent cultural clashes and the middle- versus upper-class divide are squandered. It feels like a step back for Famuyiwa, who shares writing credit with Wayne Conley and Malcolm Spellman. The filmmaker's last romantic comedy, 2002's "Brown Sugar" starring Sanaa Lathan and Taye Diggs, drifted toward too sweet at times but kept the cynicism at bay. Here it's a five-layer cake with a brown bride and a black groom on the top. With all its flaws, "Our Family Wedding" is not going to be the film that proves Ferrera can make the transition to big screen star either. It will take more than a better dressed, braces-free version of the quirky cute "Betty," which is all that is asked of her here. 1 star MPAA rating: Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Hugo Weaving as Red Skull in CAPTAIN AMERICA Movie? - Newsarama Posted: 12 Mar 2010 07:45 AM PST Most of the rumors and speculation surrounding the Joe Johnston directed "Captain America" film have circled who will play the title role. As many as eight different actors have been rumored as in the running with as much as screen tests involved. Now, thanks to The Hollywood Reporter, there's a rumor about who will play his main foe. As many suspected, The Red Skull will be the villain of the WWII-era film, and genre film heavyweight Hugo Weaving is reportedly in talks to play him. Weaving has been a mainstay of geek films with roles in "V for Vendetta," "The Matrix" trilogy, the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, and more. The Red Skull has likewise been a mainstay of Captain America comics, as a crazed nazi, a communist overlord, in a cloned body of Steve Rogers himself, and more. Always the ruthless despot, he is essentially the equal and opposite of Cap. Though multiple people have carried the name, the likely version used here will be Johann Schmidt. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
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