The latest movie reviews by Reader film critic, Mike Schulz. http://www.rcreader.com Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:28:08 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.rcreader.com/images/M_images/joomla_rss.png http://www.rcreader.com The latest movie reviews by Reader film critic, Mike Schulz. http://www.rcreader.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=21299&Itemid=412 CHRONICLE Part superhero (and -villain) origin fable and part teen-angst melodrama, Chronicle concerns three high-schoolers who venture down a mysterious hole in the Earth and emerge with telekinetic powers, and the best thing about the movie is that its leads subsequently behave just as high-schoolers likely would in such a situation. Sun, 05 Feb 2012 22:34:23 +0100 http://www.rcreader.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=21199&Itemid=412 THE GREY Whenever I watch a movie such as Alive or The Thing or director Joe Carnahan’s The Grey – especially in January – I ask myself the same question: Is it worth it? I know about cinematic sleight-of-hand, of course, and that the performers and crew aren’t enduring anywhere near the nightmarish conditions suffered by the characters on-screen. I also presume that a fat Hollywood paycheck instantly makes any location shooting, including The Grey’s outdoor shoot in wintry British Columbia, a lot more bearable. But still, all that ice and wind and trudging through thigh-deep snow ... . Is any movie experience worth spending three months in fear of losing your digits to frostbite? Sun, 29 Jan 2012 21:38:25 +0100 http://www.rcreader.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=21069&Itemid=412 THE ARTIST In the spirit of Michel Hazanavicius’ extraordinary silent-film celebration The Artist, I considered offering a review that, likewise, didn’t offer much in the way of verbal language – just a smiley-face emoticon in the biggest font possible. And after two viewings (so far) of this intimate yet grandly ambitious comedy, I’m still not sure that a review filled with actual words will offer a more thorough expression of the rapturous pleasure it fills me with; upon leaving Hazanavicius’ exhilarating experiment in black and white, both times, I haven’t felt the urge to talk about it so much as sit back and reflect on it with a huge grin plastered to my face. Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:38:48 +0100 http://www.rcreader.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=21068&Itemid=412 EXTREMELY LOUD INCREDIBLY CLOSE The protagonist of director Stephen Daldry’s Extremely Loud Incredibly Close – based on Jonathan Safran Foer’s famed 9/11/01-themed novel and adapted by screenwriter Eric Roth – is Oskar Schell, an 11-year-old Manhattanite who tells a new acquaintance that he was once tested for Asperger’s syndrome, but that “the results weren’t definitive.” My first thought upon hearing that admission was that Oskar’s folks really should’ve sought a second opinion, because with young actor Thomas Horn tearing through breathless reams of stream-of-consciousness dialogue, his condition seemed definitive as all-get-out. My second thought, which I only fully composed during the end credits, and which I apologize for in advance, was that watching Extremely Loud was like watching a movie while an 11-year-old with Asperger’s yammers in your ear for 130 minutes. Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:34:23 +0100 http://www.rcreader.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20981&Itemid=412 THE IRON LADY It’s hardly a newsflash that over the past several years – well, forever, really – Meryl Streep has treated us to a run of extraordinary performances, and her Margaret Thatcher in the screen biography The Iron Lady is one of the most extraordinary of them all. Yet the vexing question regarding Streep’s indelible work of late isn’t “How does she keep doing it?” It’s “How does she keep doing it with so little help from her directors?” Sun, 15 Jan 2012 21:20:23 +0100 http://www.rcreader.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20858&Itemid=412 TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY You know that handy, lame, relationship-ending sentiment “It’s not you; it’s me”? That’s what I feel like saying to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, the new adaptation of the famed John le Carré novel. I readily concede that director Tomas Alfredson’s spy thriller is beautifully made, boasting engaged, cagey performances and a number of superbly shot set pieces. But for all of the film’s merits, I found myself hugely relieved when its end credits rolled, because Alfredson’s intensely complicated endeavor appeared so much smarter than I am that I took almost no pleasure from the experience. My issue isn’t that the movie is a dog. It’s that, for most of Tinker Tailor’s 125 minutes, I felt like a dog watching a movie. Mon, 09 Jan 2012 15:36:16 +0100 http://www.rcreader.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20777&Itemid=412 WAR HORSE A grandly scaled adventure about a boy who gets a horse, then loses the horse, then joins the British infantry to find the horse, War Horse is the sort of triumphant, lump-in-the-throat epic that director Steven Spielberg should be able to pull off in his sleep. Consequently, the highest compliment I can pay the movie is that its helmer, at all times, appears to be fully awake here. There’s palpable filmmaking energy in nearly every shot, and several passages in this World War I family drama are so thrilling and painful and spectacularly well-choreographed that they rank among the finest in Spielberg’s career. Tue, 27 Dec 2011 20:22:12 +0100 http://www.rcreader.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20694&Itemid=412 THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO Although I haven’t read the book and now have no desire to, my guess is that those who love author Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo will likely love the new film version, which boasts exceptional style and (as I understand it) doesn’t significantly veer from the novel’s narrative. Similarly, those who genuflect at the altar of David Fincher – and I’m occasionally one of them – will find plenty to adore here, as the director’s signature imprint is on every seedy, suggestive, sepia-toned image. Thu, 22 Dec 2011 20:17:04 +0100 http://www.rcreader.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20594&Itemid=412 MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – GHOST PROTOCOL A European nutjob wants to start nuclear apocalypse, and Ethan Hunt and his team want to stop him. That’s my condensation of Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol’s needlessly complex plot in fewer than 20 words. Here’s a condensation of my feelings toward this third sequel in fewer than five: The movie kicks ass. Sun, 18 Dec 2011 22:45:21 +0100 http://www.rcreader.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20480&Itemid=412 In a rather perverse bit of scheduling, at least for me, last weekend brought with it the area release of exactly zero debuting films, while this past weekend delivered six ... on the same weekend, I should add, that I had a lengthy road trip out of town and appeared in four performances of a local stage production. But I’m not one to complain. Onward! Sun, 11 Dec 2011 21:28:51 +0100