items tagged with Jim Broadbent

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?”

ARTHUR CHRISTMAS

Of the three (count ’em!) family films that opened the day before Thanksgiving, the animated Arthur Christmas initially seemed the most ideal option for younger children, given the nostalgic, in-joke appeal of The Muppets and the melancholia and gravitas of Hugo. Who could have guessed, however, that this frisky, buoyant entertainment might actually be the least appropriate for the grade-school-and-under set? Sure, the bright colors and fast pace will keep the ankle-biters amused, but is there any way they’ll register just how freakin’ hysterical this thing is?

DAYBREAKERS

There are probably perfectly valid reasons that I'm unaware of, but for all the wonders that CGI effects have delivered over the years, why is it so hard to produce a decent fireball?

HARRY POTTER & THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE

Excepting director Alfonso Cuarón's Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban, I haven't been terribly crazy about the film adaptations of J.K. Rowling's books. But here's something that I absolutely do adore: seeing these movies in a crowded theater on opening day.

NOTORIOUS

Every musician's life is different, of course, but every musical bio-pic seems fundamentally the same: The humble beginnings, followed by the first hints of greatness, followed by the early romantic interests, followed by the steady rise to fame, followed by the new romantic interests, followed by the explosive success, followed by the personal setbacks, followed by the professional setbacks, followed by the cementing of the legend ... and if the movie can find room for a title card reading "With his life he proved that no dream is too big," so much the better.