August Rush
I am warning you now, if you don’t like Robin Williams then don’t go anywhere near this movie. Directed by Kirsten Sheridan, the movie is concerned with a young musical prodigy, who, through unforeseen circumstances, was abandoned at birth. Almost twelve years later he runs away from an orphanage and goes to New York to search for his parents. They are a budding rock star and a classical cellist. The movie is much better than you would expect. It is extremely well directed, photographed and edited. It also contains a nice mix of rock ‘n’ roll and classical music, plus a very interesting original score of contemporary music by Mark Mancina. Child star Freddie Highmore is terrific as the musical prodigy, but Robin Williams is appalling in the movie. He plays a sleazy exploiter of talented children, and he almost succeeds in destroying the delicately constructed sentimentality of the piece. Robin Williams wears a goatee, so, enough said!
Finishing The Game
The movie opens with this informative sentence: ‘On July 20th, 1973, Bruce Lee died suddenly at the age of 32, leaving behind 12 minutes of footage intended for his dream project The Game of Death’. And, so, the search is on to find a replacement for Bruce, so that the producers can complete the movie, and cash in on its notoriety. Written and directed by Justin Lin, and starring a group of unknown Kung Fu ‘experts’, who are all fabulous, the movie is an hysterical send up of exploitive 1970s Kung Fu movies, tatty TV shows, movie audition procedures, and, in fact, the complete Hollywood scene! The sets, clothes and hair styles are outrageous. Did we really look like that in the 1970s? The film stock is deliciously scratchy and grainy, and the throbbing disco soundtrack is unbelievable, or, unbearable. Whatever!
Restraint
An armed and dangerous killer, and his girlfriend, are trying to escape a police manhunt. They take sanctuary in what they think is an abandoned country mansion, but, they quickly discover that the agoraphobic owner is still in residence. Let the mind games begin! Okay, there is really nothing new in this low budget Australian movie. We are all pretty familiar with the scenario. Still, director David Denneen, along with actors Travis Fimmel, Teresa Palmer and Stephen Moyer, manage to put together a rather gripping movie that has its fair share of thrills, chills, and somewhat graphic violence.
August
Set in the momentous year of 2001, Josh Hartnett plays a very aggressive overnight dot.com multi-millionaire, who finds himself struggling to keep his company afloat on the stock market. Written by Howard A. Rodman and directed by Austin Chick, the movie is not what you expect. It is not really concerned with financial intrigues, and, instead, it slowly develops into a study about character and motivation. The movie is quite stylish, in a kind of alienating way, and as this sober drama about greed and avarice progresses, it skillfully reflects the changing American politics of those turbulent times.
Witless Protection
Larry the Cable Guy is back in another brainless, ludicrous, ‘Red Necked’ comedy. This time around Larry plays a ‘Deep South’ small town country sheriff, who thinks he witnessed a lovely high-class woman being abducted against her will. True to form Larry has made a mistake, nonetheless he still comes running to the woman’s rescue. The movie is full of ‘fat’ jokes and ‘fart’ jokes. It is pretty crass. Even so, it does have many hilarious moments.
Leatherheads
As a romantic comedy this movie is not all that romantic or funny. Set in 1925, George Clooney plays an American Football entrepreneur, who is struggling to keep his team together, while he also struggles to establish a professional football league. Renee Zellweger plays a pesky reporter, hot on the trail of a story about one of the football players who might not be the ‘War Hero’ he claims to be. George is still a good-looking leading man, but Renee appears slightly overweight and bored by the whole thing. Like all ‘movie couples’ in love, they fight and bicker to the point of tedium. Think Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable in ‘It Happened One Night’ (1934). Much money has been spent on the recreation of the 1920s ambience, but George Clooney’s direction is insipid. He creates a tedious ‘formula’ movie.
Meet The Browns
Angela Bassett, one of America’s better and most beautiful Afro-American actresses, plays a brave single mother struggling to make ends meet in the tenements of Chicago. When she receives an invitation to attend the funeral of her father, she decides to go to Georgia to get to know the family she never knew existed. There she meets a man, played by the handsome Afro-American actor Rick Fox, who might just change her life. Written, produced and directed by Tyler Perry, everyone in this movie is incredibly righteous, funny or quirky, and everyone in this large boisterous Afro-American family lead incredibly righteous, funny or quirky lives. The movie is like something only Myrna Loy and Clifton Webb could have made, way back in the 1940s.
Drillbit Taylor
‘My Bodyguard’, a ‘semi-classic’ movie about a nerdy high-school student who hires a bodyguard to protect him from the school bullies, was made in 1980. If you haven’t seen the original you might enjoy this re-make. Fans of Owen Wilson, and present nerdy high-school students, will fancy the movie.
