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November 2014
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Monthly Archives: November 2014

Interstellar (2014)

interstellarDIRECTOR: Christopher Nolan

CAST: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine, Casey Affleck, Matt Damon, Wes Bentley, David Gyasi, Topher Grace, John Lithgow, Mackenzie Foy, Ellen Burstyn, David Oyelowo, Bill Irwin (voice)

REVIEW:

WARNING: THIS REVIEW WILL REVEAL ASPECTS OF THE FILM’S PLOT

Christopher Nolan has never shied away from a challenge or been content with generic, and Interstellar is his most ambitious project yet, surpassing his resurrection of the Batman film franchise and the mind-bending contortions of Inception to combine powerful human drama with a rigorous attempt at making a “hard” science fiction film that takes a serious examination of the rules and physics involved in a way Hollywood seldom attempts.  If Nolan’s reach sometimes exceeds his grasp, the passion and grandeur he has thrown into this project makes comparatively minor flaws forgivable.  Interstellar is not a perfect motion picture–far from it, in fact–but it is by turns hopeful and heartbreaking, simultaneously paying tribute to the spirit of exploration and the cold, silent, deadly realities of space. Continue reading

Non-Stop (2014)

Non-StopDIRECTOR:  Jaume Collet-Serra

CAST: Liam Neeson, Julianne Moore, Michelle Dockery, Anson Mount, Corey Stoll, Scoot McNairy, Lupita Nyong’o, Linus Roache

REVIEW:

Non-Stop is a bit like a souped-up Hitchcock thriller, with occasional action scenes tossed in so modern audiences won’t get bored waiting for the diabolical premise to unfold.  To that end, it generates enough suspense to distract us from plot holes (something Hitchcock himself wasn’t always above).  It’s not a great thriller, but it’s compulsively watchable and keeps us wanting to see how things wrap up without letting us be sure of that until the climax. Continue reading

The Theory of Everything (2014)

DIRECTOR: James Marsh

CAST: Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones, Charlie Cox, David Thewlis

REVIEW:

The Theory of Everything is an undistinguished biopic about a very distinguished individual.  An adaptation of the memoirs of Jane Hawking, it chronicles her marriage to her former husband Stephen Hawking and the journey of their complicated relationship amid his physical degeneration while giving the shallow basics of his theorizing about the origins of the universe.  It serves its basic purpose of showing the more personal side of a famed theoretical physicist, but there’s a feeling of skimming the surface. Continue reading

Maleficent (2014)

maleficentDIRECTOR: Robert Stromberg

CAST: Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Sharlto Copley, Sam Riley, Imelda Staunton, Lesley Manville, Juno Temple, Brenton Thwaites

REVIEW:

Maleficent does for its title character (the villain of Disney’s 1959 animated classic Sleeping Beauty) what Wicked did for The Wicked Witch of the West, providing a “re-imagining” in which Maleficent is not a one-dimensional cackling villainess reveling in her own evilness, but a tragic, mistreated anti-heroine.  Actually, Maleficent goes even further than Wicked (arguably too far), playing fast and loose with the Sleeping Beauty story and turning it on its head.  That’s not a problem, but Maleficent has a feel of watered-down, generic fantasy adventure that contains enough visual wonder to entertain children and be tolerable for parents, but like another recent re-imagining of a Disney classic, Snow White and the Huntsmandoesn’t live up to its own potential. Continue reading

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