14 Mar 2015

Bibbidy-Bobbidi Boon: "Cinderella" and "Run All Night"

By Junior Theatre

CINDERELLA

Given its sumptuous production design and its array of multi-hued gowns so breathtaking that costumer Sandy Powell should just be sent her inevitable Oscar via express mail, Disney's new, live-action Cinderella has to be the most opulent deeply unnecessary movie ever made. Somewhat unexpectedly, it's also one of the more satisfying deeply unnecessary movies ever made. Director Kenneth Branagh's fairytale adaptation, with its script by Chris Weitz, may have no reason to exist beyond the obvious mercenary one, but it's strong and heartfelt and quite beautifully acted - proof that even in the revisionist age of Maleficent, it's not always necessary to re-invent the wheel.

11 Jan 2015

For King and Country: "Selma," "Inherent Vice," and "Taken 3"

By Mike Schulz

SELMA

Movie violence is so prevalent - be it in horror films or action franchises (see Taken 3, if you must) or the PG-13 pummelings of every Marvel entertainment ever - that it's shocking to see one whose brutal acts have the power to make you cry. But within the first minutes of the extraordinary Selma, director Ava DuVernay stages a literal explosion of historical violence so frightening, repellent, and emotionally overwhelming that, in the awestruck moments of silence that followed, it was absolutely no surprise to hear viewers sniffling.

27 Jan 2013

Skit-ish: "Movie 43," "Parker," and "Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters"

By Mike Schulz

MOVIE 43

Ordinarily, Movie 43 would be the sort of unsatisfying, throwaway release that I'd dispense with in a paragraph, or maybe just a sentence or two. And it's not as though its opening-weekend box-office intake - a meager $5 million, despite the presence of nearly every star in Hollywood - necessitates longer consideration of the film. But this anthology comedy in the style of those '70s cult classics Kentucky Fried Movie and The Groove Tube seems to me a special case. How often, after all, do you get the chance to write about what might be your all-time least-enjoyable experience at the cineplex - including that time during the early '90s when you had to leave a screening for emergency root-canal surgery?

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