items tagged with David Oyelowo

THE GUILT TRIP

Aside from her appearances as Ben Stiller’s hippie mom in those increasingly labored Meet the Parents sequels, Barbra Steisand hasn’t been seen in a film since her 1996 directorial effort The Mirror Has Two Faces, and considering what an ego-fueled embarrassment that picture was, some of us have been grateful for the break. It’s worth remembering, though, that when her material doesn’t let her down (and she’s not directing her own star vehicles), Streisand can still be a fantastically smart and inventive comedienne – which, happily, she’s allowed to be in nearly every scene of The Guilt Trip.

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.