items tagged with Alfred Molina

MONEYBALL

On paper, the casting of Brad Pitt as Oakland A’s General Manager Billy Beane in Moneyball must have seemed inspired. On screen, it’s so, so much better than that. Pitt has, of course, given many wonderful performances over the past two decades (and just as many blandly acceptable or downright dreary ones). But to my mind, his Billy Beane – driven, hopeful, cocky, incensed, funny, tender, and smart as hell – is the actor’s first chance to employ all of his gifts in the service of an emotionally expansive, fully shaped character, and Pitt’s beautiful and generous work here is truly a sight to behold. Director Bennett Miller’s last feature film was his 2005 debut Capote, which netted Philip Seymour Hoffman a Best Actor Oscar. With Moneyball, Miller might find himself batting 2-for-2 for his stars in that category.

RANGO

I spent the past several days enjoying a vacation halfway across the country, and am consequently getting my reviews written a few days later than usual. In terms of reviewing the animated Rango, though, I’m quite grateful for the delay, because I so rarely get the chance to write about movies that I love after I’ve seen them a second time. Had the vacation lasted longer, I might’ve even gone for a third.

CYRUS

Splice came and went in the blink of an eye and Predators sucks. So if you're jonesing for a good horror movie these days, you're advised to catch Jay and Mark Duplass' Cyrus, even though it isn't any kind of conventional scare flick; Jonah Hill's title character, however, could stand proudly next to Anthony Perkins' Norman Bates in the Crazy-Ass-Mama's-Boy Hall of Fame.
Read More About Mother Lovers: “Cyrus” And “The Sorcerer’S Apprentice”...

SEX & THE CITY 2

Sex & the City 2 begins with a multi-million-dollar gay wedding at which Liza Minnelli serves as officiator and headliner, and somehow manages to grow even more over-the-top, garish, and belief-defying over its next two hours and 20 minutes. It should be said that writer/director Michael Patrick King's follow-up is only rarely dull, mainly because the act of repeatedly lifting your jaw up off the floor can't help but keep you awake. Yet S&TC2 is still an obscene and desperately unfunny ordeal, even if - maybe especially if - you derived occasional or continual pleasure from its six-season HBO forbear or King's 2008 big-screen offshoot.
Read More About Manhattan-Ite Transfer: “Sex & The City 2” And “Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time”...

CRAZY HEART

Writer/director Scott Cooper's Crazy Heart is a character drama of gentle, lulling rhythms -- so lulling, in truth, that I momentarily dozed off halfway through the film. But I'm pretty sure that I was smiling as I slept, because the steady, deliberate pacing feels just right for the tale Cooper's telling, and because star Jeff Bridges is so masterfully assured as down-and-out country singer Bad Blake that he leaves you in a state of utter, unadulterated happiness and calm. (The actor might almost be saying, "Go ahead and nap. I'll be here when you wake up.") There may have been more exciting screen performances amidst 2009's releases, but possibly none as thoughtful, lived-in, and moving as Bridges'; in his hands, a role that easily could've been a one-note conceit is nothing short of symphonic.