27 Apr 2009

She Is... Sasha Fierce: "Obsessed," "The Soloist," and "Earth"

By Mike Schulz

OBSESSED

A Fatal Attraction without the slow-cooking rabbit - and, strangely, without the adultery - the Steve Shill thriller Obsessed reaches its raison d'ÃƒÂªtre in the final reel, when Beyoncé Knowles' wronged wife stands off against Ali Larter's vixen from hell, and the pop star hisses, "I knew it would come to this." So did we all, Beyoncé. But did it have to come so late?

12 Feb 2009

Eyes Wide Shut: "Coraline," "Push," and "The Pink Panther 2"

By Mike Schulz

CORALINE

Employing extraordinarily supple, nearly tactile stop-motion animation and 3D effects, the children's film Coraline is filled with visual magic, and just about corners the market on unsettling imagery. A grinning pair of parental doppelgÃƒÂ¤ngers, with buttons sewn into their eye sockets, serve a dinner composed of mango milkshakes and chocolate beetles. Two morbidly obese British dowagers unzip their skins and emerge as lithe trapeze artists. A feral alley cat talks, and a theatre full of mutts attends a vaudeville, and it's all strange and clever and tantalizingly designed. Is it ungrateful, if not downright senseless, to admit that I could hardly wait for this movie to end?

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