items tagged with Cate Blanchett

ARTHUR

There were better comedies released in the ’80s, to be sure. But I don’t think I have a stronger affection for any of them than I do for 1981’s Arthur, writer/director Steve Gordon’s screwball-farce throwback that featured Dudley Moore’s drunken multi-millionaire sharing brilliantly barbed repartee with caretaker John Gielgud. Consequently, I came dangerously close to booing when I first saw the preview for director Jason Winer’s Arthur remake. True, Russell Brand seemed the only logical choice to fill Moore’s (diminutive) shoes, and while Gielgud is irreplaceable, Helen Mirren seemed a reasonable enough sparring partner. But, I mean, come on – is nothing sacred?!

Before getting into what went wrong at last night’s Academy Awards ceremony – and sadly, quite a bit went wrong – let’s begin by addressing the one portion of the telecast that, for maybe the first time in Oscar history, went magically right.

ROBIN HOOD

With director Ridley Scott's heavy-spirited adventure Robin Hood, the audience waits nearly an hour for its first reprieve from the grimness and grime, and when it finally arrives, the moment consists of Max von Sydow's blind land baron getting a whiff of Russell Crowe's gamy Robin and growling, "You stink." As mood lighteners go, so does that gag. And so, for the most part, does the movie.
Read More About Not-So-Merry Men: “Robin Hood” And “Letters To Juliet”...

DISTRICT 9

Director Neill Blomkamp's District 9 is a science-fiction/horror/action flick that finds a race of malnourished, understandably irate alien creatures being forcibly detained in a Johannesburg internment camp. It's also, if you can stomach the frequent bursts of bloodshed and gooey splatter, an almost insanely good time, an unapologetic "B" movie elevated to "A" status through wizardly filmmaking, macabre humor, thematic cleverness, and some of the most inventive CGI work in years.

THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON

Visually arresting and wildly ambitious, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a tough film to dislike. But I'm giving it a shot anyway, because while director David Fincher's 165-minute opus is spectacular in lots of small ways, it's frustrating and fundamentally unsatisfying in much, much bigger ones. Given several days to reflect on the experience, I no longer hate the movie the way I initially did, yet I remain convinced that what could have, and should have, been a magical, lyrical piece of work is instead a graceless, obvious, and frequently maddening one.