Arts and Culture (Movie Reviews)

Article - Movie Reviews; by Mark Burns - 12/2/10

Love and Other Drugs

A lewd romantic dramedy with gratuitous nudity bouncing around the conceit of trying to say something profound.

What an odd little romance. Jamie (Jake Gyllenhaal: Prince of Persia) is a slick electronics salesman and ladies man. When the med school dropout is canned for stockroom indiscretion, he gives pharmaceutical sales a try, and he’s not that great. Until, that is, he calls upon his certain strengths to flirt his way to sales. As he struggles for a foothold in the ethical murk of prescription pushing, he meets Maggie (Anne Hathaway: Alice in Wonderland), a willful artist and astute Parkinson...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 11/25/10

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1

Wizards and muggles will find fun and suspense as Harry’s magical world collapses around him

When the screen faded to black at the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows there was an audible protest from the audience. The fact that a packed house sat still for 146 minutes and begged for more when the credits rolled is probably the best recommendation I can give. But they pay me to write more than a paragraph. Director David Yates hits his stride with his third entry in the Harry Potter film saga. The story finds our beloved witches and wizards at their darkest hour — Lord...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Mark Burns - 11/18/10

Unstoppable

A veteran engineer and novice conductor race to subdue a rampaging locomotive in this fun chase.

Frank (Denzel Washington: The Book of Eli) is a veteran railroad engineer trying to train up a distracted rookie, Will (Chris Pine: Star Trek). They’ve just hit the main line when they find out a fully loaded runaway train with tankers full of highly explosive cargo — “a missile the size of the Chrysler Building” — is roaring through southern Pennsylvania towns at speeds over 70 miles per hour toward a dangerous S-curve. If somebody doesn’t stop it, the train...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Mark Burns - 11/11/10

Megamind

Evil makes good in this amusing superhero farce.

Megamind (Will Ferrell: The Other Guys) is the brainiac supervillain of Metro City. He terrorizes the town in his repetitive quest to defeat superpowered arch nemesis and golden boy Metro Man (Brad Pitt: Inglourious Basterds). That is, until the villain finally knocks the hero out of the picture. Finally, Megamind owns the town, but without a rival to challenge him the fun is gone. So Megamind creates Tighten (Jonah Hill: Get Him to the Greek) as a new super-powered foil to recharge villainy...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Mark Burns - 11/4/10

Conviction

A sister struggles to free her innocent brother in this jumbled biographical legal drama.

Betty Anne (Hilary Swank: Amelia) and Kenny (Sam Rockwell: Iron Man 2) are tight-knit siblings bound by hardship and mischief. Kenny’s a little more mischievous, though, and the favorite suspect of local cops winds up serving a life sentence without parole when they pin him for a vicious murder. Against staggering evidence, Betty Anne devotes her life to winning his freedom, eventually going to college to become a lawyer and working with new friend Abra (Minnie Driver: Take) to exonerate...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Mark Burns - 10/28/10

Hereafter

This meditative speculation on the spiritual realm is easily the quietest death-minded movie in the Cineplex this Halloween.

Three strangers are wrestling with death. Marie (Cécile De France: Mesrine: Killer Instinct), a French journalist, is revived after nearly being consumed by the Indian Ocean tsunami and emerges shaken by her brush with the afterlife. Marcus, a British schoolboy, is left rudderless when his twin brother Jason is stolen by tragedy (Frankie and George McLaren in their debut). And George (Matt Damon: Green Zone) is a genuine psychic talent who laments his burden of communing with the dead. Through...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 10/28/10

Paranormal Activity 2

A bigger budget means louder, not scarier, thrills in this horror prequel

I don’t think of myself as a horror wimp. I’ve seen it all, and I’ll watch the sequels. That said, the first Paranormal Activity creeped me out. Days later an unexplained noise or a movement in my peripheral vision would cause me to tense and search for its demonic origins. Paranormal Activity 2 is a worthy step in the series, but it nowhere nears the original’s scare-power. Part of this is the budget. In the original, a tiny budget necessitated small-scale practical...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Mark Burns - 10/21/10

Red

Superspy sages come out of retirement swinging in this snappy comic action flick.

Frank Moses (Bruce Willis: Cop Out) is a lonely guy, quietly whiling away retirement with regular phone calls to his federal pension agent, Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker: TV’s Weeds). Dimmed verve gets a jolt, though, when a hit squad comes crashing through his home in the dead of night. Suddenly he’s crisscrossing the country, fighting off a kill order and CIA hotshot William (Karl Urban: Star Trek) even while connecting with mothballed allies and assets. Together they’ll crack a...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Mark Burns - 10/14/10

Secretariat

An upstart horse owner rocks the racing world in this capable equine sports drama.

Penny (Diane Lane: Nights in Rodanthe) is a Denver housewife returned to the family’s Virginia horse farm by her mother’s death. She means to stay just long enough to set the stables in order. But Penny’s equestrian id returns full force, and her passion flares when she’s gifted with the prize foal that will become Secretariat. She’s hooked. Soon — with the help of trainer Lucien (John Malkovich: Jonah Hex), plus a few friends — Penny finds herself...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Mark Burns - 10/7/10

The Social Network

Harvard alums battle for ownership of a legacy in this smart Silicon Valley pastiche.

Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg: Zombieland) is a socially stunted Harvard sophomore. Just dumped by his girlfriend, he gets drunk, lashes out in a blog, hacks for photos of Ivy League co-eds and creates a hotness rating website that crashes Harvard’s network. The misadventure stirs up trouble but also catches the attention of alpha twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss (both Armie Hammer: Spring Breakdown), who recruit him into developing their own dating website. But Zuckerberg...