items tagged with Owen Wilson

MIRACLE

Although I’m generally a sucker for triumph-of-the-underdog sports flicks – 1986’s Hoosiers remains my favorite – and was all set to have a good sniffle at Miracle, the movie is so cynically programmed to be a lump-in-the-throat audience-pleaser that I found it all too easy to resist.

DAREDEVIL

Though he tries mighty hard, Ben Affleck isn’t quite able to ruin Daredevil, Mark Steven Johnson’s screen adaptation of the Marvel comic. Among comic-book fans, the news that Affleck would be portraying the tortured hero – an angry, despressed, and, oh yeah, blind lawyer who, when not losing cases in court, dons leather and kicks bad-guy ass – was met with a collective rolling of the eyes; a friend of mine, upon hearing about the casting, put it succinctly: “Oh great. It’s gonna suck."

HARRY POTTER & THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS

Although I didn’t care for last year’s Harry Potter & The Sorcerer’s Stone, I was more than willing to greet the new Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets with an open mind.

SWEET HOME ALABAMA

Just how much goodwill are audiences willing to extend to Reese Witherspoon? Quite a lot, actually, if their response to Sweet Home Alabama is any indication.

MONSTER'S BALL

In Marc Forster’s sterling drama Monster’s Ball, Halle Berry portrays Leticia Musgrove, the wife of a convicted murderer (Sean Combs), who takes the graveyard shift of an all-night Georgia café to support herself and her pre-teen son (Coronji Calhoun). One of her repeat customers is corrections officer Hank Grotowski (Billy Bob Thornton), son of an unrepentant racist (Peter Boyle) and father of a damaged, depressed son (Heath Ledger). Through a series of tragedies, Leticia and Hank find spiritual and sexual solace in each other’s company, and Monster’s Ball asks the question that, sadly enough, must still be asked in modern-day America: Can black and white find a middle ground and truly exist in harmony?