26 Apr 2015

The Crash of 29: "The Age of Adaline," "Little Boy," and "Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter"

By Mike Schulz

Michiel Huisman and Blake Lively in The Age of AdalineTHE AGE OF ADALINE

In director Lee Toland Krieger's The Age of Adaline, Blake Lively plays a 29-year-old who, following a supernatural accident involving a car crash and a bolt of lightning, goes through life never again aging a day, and 82-year-old Ellen Burstyn plays her daughter. You may recall that Burstyn also recently portrayed Matthew McConaughey's elderly daughter in Interstellar. If this is the continuation of a trend for the magnificent actress, I'm really hoping she keeps acting for another decade or more, because I'm dying to eventually see her cast as the great-grand-niece to that adorable little girl on Modern Family.

11 Apr 2015

Crock and Bull Story: "The Longest Ride," "Woman in Gold," and "Wild Tales"

By Mike Schulz

Scott Eastwood and Britt Robertson in The Longest RideTHE LONGEST RIDE

I don't mean to alarm you, but this past Friday, a seismic event occurred at national cineplexes: A movie based on one of Nicholas Sparks' romantic melodramas opened, and not once - not once! - did its dewy young lovers wind up kissing in the rain.

07 Dec 2014

Foreign Affairs: "Force Majeure," "Goodbye to Language 3D," and "The Pyramid"

By Mike Schulz

Force MajeureFORCE MAJEURE and GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE 3D

On Friday, I caught a foreign-language double-feature at Iowa City's FilmScene venue, and was happy to do it. In retrospect, I might've been even happier had I only stuck around for half of it.

15 Apr 2012

Biting (Off) the Hand That Feeds You: "The Cabin in the Woods," "The Three Stooges," "The Raid: Redemption," and "Lockout"

By Mike Schulz

Fran Kranz, Chris Hemsworth, and Anna Hutchison in The Cabin in the WoodsTHE CABIN IN THE WOODS

Hollywood's been leading toward it for decades, and with the blithely enjoyable, exceedingly clever The Cabin in the Woods, it's finally happened: A movie has been released in which practically everything about it - its plot, its twists, its performers, its characters, its themes, its jokes - could be considered a spoiler.

30 Jan 2011

Schadenfreude-ian Slips: "Inside Job," "Dogtooth," and "The Mechanic"

By Mike Schulz

Elliot Spitzer in Inside JobINSIDE JOB

You might not think that director Charles Ferguson's Inside Job, the newly (and deservedly) Oscar-nominated documentary about 2008's global economic meltdown, would offer much in the way of participatory, audience-goosing entertainment. After all, this isn't exactly a Michael Moore doc we're dealing with here. Employing dozens of lucid, well-reasoned interviews with financial experts and reams of statistics and graphs, Ferguson's strong, angry, yet level-headed explanation of our current financial crisis is the polar opposite, in temperament and tone, of a Fahrenheit 9/11 or Capitalism: A Love Story. But while the experience of the impeccably photographed, sharply edited Inside Job is a mostly dead-serious one, damn but my audience appeared to have a good time at it - or, perhaps it's more appropriate to say, a cathartic time.

24 Jan 2007

No Guts, No Glory: "Letters from Iwo Jima," "The Last King of Scotland," and "Pan's Labyrinth"

By Mike Schulz

Letters from Iwo JimaFor devoted movie hounds, and those who enjoy getting caught up with potential Academy Award nominees, this past weekend was an embarrassment of riches, as Davenport's Showcase 53 presented the local debuts of Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima, Kevin Macdonald's The Last King of Scotland, and Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth. Of course, the wide(r) release of these three films makes good business sense - what better time for such specialized works to attract audiences if not the weekend after the Golden Globes and before the announcement of 2006 Oscar nominees? (Showcase 53 and Moline's Great Escape Theatre also, wisely, brought The Queen back to area screens - seriously, folks, it's so much fun! - and Great Escape re-opened Babel.)

01 Apr 2003

Latest King Adaptation an Incoherent Nightmare: "Dreamcatcher," "The Core," "View from the Top," and "Talk to Her"

By Mike Schulz

Morgan Freeman in DreamcatcherDREAMCATCHER

Just how unspeakably bad is the Stephen King adaptation Dreamcatcher? Allow me to present a few examples of opening sentences I was considering for this review:

14 May 2002

Lane Shines in Hypnotic "Unfaithful": Also, "Y tu mama tambien" and "Deuces Wild"

By Mike Schulz

Diane Lane and Olivier Martinez in UnfaithfulUNFAITHFUL

Diane Lane has been a terrific performer for close to 25 years without really becoming a star, yet that's destined to change with Unfaithful, the hypnotic new Adrian Lyne thriller that gives Ms. Lane the chance to show, when granted the right material, how incredibly fine she can be.

12 Mar 2002

"Soldiers"' Passion Is Its Strength: "We Were Soldiers," "40 Days & 40 Nights," and "Amelie"

By Mike Schulz

Chris Klein in We Were SoldiersWE WERE SOLDIERS

We Were Soldiers is, in many ways, the oddest war movie I've ever seen. It's set during the Ia Drang battle of the Vietnam War, but it's performed and directed with such resolute patriotism and heroism that it feels like a product of World War II, or rather, movies about World War II.

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