items tagged with Noah Taylor

CHARLIE & THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY

For the life of me, I can’t figure out what director Tim Burton was trying to accomplish with Charlie & the Chocolate Factory that wasn’t previously accomplished by Roald Dahl’s book or the beloved 1971 film.

SEABISCUIT

Seabiscuit arrives as such a breath of fresh air – an inspirational period piece in a sea of noisy, formulaic action drivel – that you wish to God the movie was better than it actually is.

ALMOST FAMOUS

Almost Famous, writer-director Cameron Crowe’s semi-autobiographical hymn to the joys and heartbreaks of rock ’n’ roll, is filled with extraordinarily lovely details and an uncanny fondness for the film’s 1970s setting. It’s engaging, gorgeously lit, and filled with goodwill. The things it’s not are believable, challenging, or memorable. It has obviously been made with great love – Crowe spent years trying to turn his youthful experiences into a movie – and Crowe’s attention to the minutiae of the rock scene is heady and alluring. But Almost Famous ends up as far less than the sum of its parts, a movie so intoxicated by its period that elements like character and conflict barely exist; despite its look and the rave reviews being showered on it, the film itself feels empty.