items tagged with Guy Pearce

DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK

When a horror movie is really working, you tend to feel a tightening in the gut – a means of preventing you from audibly reacting to the intensity. When a horror movie is really not working, at least at the cineplex, you also tend to feel this clenching of the stomach muscles, but not because you’re trying to avoid screaming. It’s because you’re trying to avoid laughing.

I AM NUMBER FOUR

A handsome, troubled, rebellious transfer student dealing with alienation and the wrath of bullies at his new high school. The kid’s ineffectual father, shrugging off his child’s loneliness and conflicts with the authorities. The kid’s one new friend, a withdrawn, frequently picked-on nerd with his own parental hang-ups. The kid’s potential love interest, a pretty, popular girl who feels like an outsider herself, and appears to be the property of the kid’s chief tormentor. If you’ve seen a certain iconic drama starring Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, and a red-jacket-wearing James Dean, the aforementioned character descriptions might sound a teensy bit familiar.

THE KING’S SPEECH

A tony odd-couple comedy in the guise of a historical prestige pic, The King’s Speech boasts a pair of exceptional performances by Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush, and is a terrific amount of fun. But am I alone in thinking that its central storyline is the least interesting thing about it?

As one calendar year ends and another begins, it feels like a good time to give thanks. And amidst the lame romantic comedies and thrill-less thrillers and unending stream of remakes, sequels, and - in the case of Rob Zombie's Halloween II - even the remake of a sequel, there was actually quite a lot that I was thankful for in the movie year of 2009.

ANGELS & DEMONS

You may not necessarily know character actor Armin Mueller-Stahl by name, but you likely know him by sight, and almost surely by voice. Familiar from such thrillers as Eastern Promises, The Game, and the recent The International - and Oscar-nominated as David Helfgott's über-strict father in Shine - the 78-year-old German, with his closely-cropped gray hair and wizened eye slits, doesn't look much different now from how he did playing Jessica Lange's is-he-a-Nazi-or-isn't-he? dad in 1989's Music Box. And he sounds exactly the same, with that heavily accented, hoarse whisper of his; by the time the performer reaches the end of a sentence, he always seems dangerously close to running out of breath.