Jun 17, 2011
(Rated PG-13, 110 mins.) With all the Hollywood hype on couples splitting, timing couldn’t be better for this story of Kiki Harrison (Julia Roberts), a devoted personal assistant to beautiful, narcissistic megastar Gwen Harrison (Catherine Zeta-Jones). She also happens to be Gwen’s sister. Life as siblings was tough before but this time it’s at an all-time peak when Roberts agrees to help Gwen and her estranged actor husband Eddie Thomas (John Cusack) reunite for one last public appearance to promote their latest movie. Veteran press agent (Billy Crystal), on the brink of being replaced by his younger protégé, is put in charge of masterminding this highly anticipated event that of course backfires in more ways than one. A “Final Analysis” feel with that award winning Robert’s “Notting Hill” smile make for a feel-good summer movie especially since Roberts took a back seat in this anti-glamour-less of a role. Because of Zeta-Jones playing a diva, her hard edge doesn’t make for good chemistry with Cusack, (the movie’s only flaw), although she deals a good hand at comedy. Hank Azaria plays a lover, Stanley Tucci an eccentric studio guy and Christopher Walken as a controlling director, all well-suited and perfectly cast.
Jun 17, 2011
Nantucket Film Festival 2001 (106 Mins)
Based on a true story of a young mother (Nastassja Kinski) and her husband (Tony Goldwyn) who flee Budapest in 1956 on the cusp of the Soviet invasion, leaving behind their infant daughter. Reestablished in Vienna and then onto America, another six years pass before they are reunited with her in Los Angeles. Like no other movie out there, American Rhadsopy weaves freedom vs. communism, luxury vs. simplicity, history and ethics vs. modern conveniences, as told through the eyes of a young teenage girl going from one extreme to another and hungering to understand the roots of her ancestry. This story will remind us of our own heritage reflecting on the fact that we are who we are based on our past.
Jun 17, 2011
(rated R, 100 mins.) Based on the controversial novel by Bret Easton Ellis, this story tells of a yuppie New York City stockbroker’s obsession with material goods and his parallel acts of brutality, rape, torture, and murder, during a time (the 80s), when image is everything.
Featured players include Christian Bale “Velvet Underground” who gives an Oscar worthy performance as Patrick Bateman. One has to wonder what Leonardo DiCaprio was thinking when he passed on this role for his recent flop, “The Beach”, although there is no way the pretty faced boy could have pulled this role off. Lionsgate films made the right decision going after the half Tom Cruise half Matt McConaughey look alike. Also starring Willem Dafoe as the questioning private eye, Jared Leto of “Fight Club”, Samantha Mathis as his fling, and Reese Witherspoon, “Pleasantville,” as his society fiancée who spends his bottomless expense account.
Come equipped with a vivid imagination for this one. Christian Bale delivers O.C.D. characteristics with lunacy, in his sick drive to suck up to a world where currency rules. He and his fellow Wall Street boys play ‘Masters of the Universe’, except stockbroker Bale gets off on chopping up his house guests. Mary Harron delivers a film minus the surgical stomach turning descriptions found in the book, with instead hip, stylized visuals that will remind you more of Kubrick’s “The Shining.” Harron says “Mel Gibson’s ‘Braveheart’ is more violent.” Think the in-control character of Hanibal Lechter in “Silence Of the Lambs” but not as much a drama as a black comedy. A ‘cut above’ no pun intended and the business card scene will have you running to your nearest printer’s office.
Jun 17, 2011
(not rated. 100 mins.) Somewhat obnoxious but good-natured comedy picks up one year after the events of the first Pie, where our four hormonally overactive heroes return for the summer from college and engage in various sexual misadventures. A year older but not necessarily wiser, the same gang includes Jason Biggs and Shannon Elizabeth with some amusing and often squeamish sequences with oh-my-God moments that revolve around college life of bingeing and sex. Nothing new but certainly entertaining for teens. My biggest fear is three words: American Pie 3.
Jun 17, 2011
It’s 1968 and Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) a Harlem drug Lord, is busy shipping 100 kilos of heroine into the US from Thailand. Then he’s smuggling cocaine in the coffins of Viet Nam vets. Next thing we know he’s built an empire just as Nixon proclaims, ‘The number one problem in America is drug abuse.” But along with his seedy drug-doings, Lucas is always promoting family, honesty and integrity. Denzel is good at playing a sophisticated gangster (although we’ve seen him be a crooked cop in “Training Day”). But it’s Cuba Gooding as a pimp-type club owner who really takes a leap. The problem is Russell Crowe, as the too-good-for-his-own-good detective Richie Roberts, who doesn’t transcend the part, and who’s got a bad 1970s haircut. He’s trying to bring down dirty cops, politicians and judges, all on Lucas’s payroll and his big moment doesn’t come from blood and guns, but instead a stare down in the movies’ final scene with Denzel. While the whole hip-hop element will attract a wider audience, the over-the-top intelligence that this story delivers (written by Steve “Schindler’s List” Zallian) will lose the “Scarface” cult in the dust (of the cocaine.) Two tiaras
