Movie Review: Brooklyn (2015)

Rating: B/  This is the kind of movie you sort of have to be in the mood for; a slow-paced, low-key period piece with a vivid sense of time and place. The love story at the center of the film is endearing if nothing spectacular, but the excellent acting and instantly empathizeable heroine make it an enjoyable experience. It’s like a slice of life from days long since past.

Book Review: Little Children by Tom Perrotta

Rating: B/  Adultery, pedophilia, pornography addiction, and the all-around dark side of Suburbia all converge in this darkly funny, bleak book, which nonetheless kind of falls apart in a final act that is both inexplicable and unsatisfying. This is going to be a hard book to review, because I loved the movie, and as a result the differences between the two projects were kind of jarring for me. It’s pretty much the reverse of loving a book and not being able to reconcile with the changes made to the story when you are watch the movie. Anyway, Tom Perrotta’s novel is a bit more tongue-in-cheek than the movie, which was just plain depressing and had a conclusion that people found overly lurid and exploitative (but, funnily enough, which I found less baffling and more satisfying than the book ending.)

Movie Review: Hush (2016)

Rating: B-/ Hush is a fairly typical home invasion/slasher flick with a intriguing twist- the victim of the unfolding mayhem is more or less completely deaf, making her easy pickings for an unhinged thrill seeker with a neck tat and a bad attitude. Or so he thinks. Maddie (actress/ co-writer Kate Siegel) is a kind and independent hearing-impaired young woman who’s retreated to a cabin in the woods to finish her latest novel.All the wants is some peace and quiet while she tries to overcome her crippling bout of writer’s block, but the otherwise unnamed ‘man’ (John Gallagher Jr.) has other ideas, as he stalks Maddie with a crossbow, intent on not only murdering her but also making her life a living hell before doing so.

Book Review: The Life Before Her Eyes by Laura Kasischke

Rating: B/ Considering that I had already seen the excellent film adaptation a few years before, this novel held few surprises for me, least of all the twist ending alluded to in it’s lyrical title. So it’s a good thing that Laura Kasischke focuses more in her writing on lyricism and less on plot. With the lovely, vivid writing, I still felt like I was getting something new out of the experience of reading the book even though I pretty much knew the story. The Life Before her Eyes is a good book, not a great one. The writing can be meandering and sentimental while at the same time being lush and gorgeous, starting off the bat with a Sophie’s Choice type situation and gradually touching on aging, sorrow, and regret in a bittersweet manner.

Book Review: The Silver Star by Jeannette Walls

Rating: B+/ Two bright and resourceful sisters, twelve-year-old Bean (real name Jean) and fifteen-year-old Liz, are abandoned by their flaky mother Charlotte in a small California apartment while she goes out to ‘find herself’ and make it big as a songwriter and musician. When Charlotte doesn’t return for months at a time and the social workers get involved. Bean and Liz take a bus to their eccentric Uncle Tinsley’s decaying mansion in Byler, Virginia, where he reluctantly takes them in.

Movie Review: Locke (2013)

Rating: B/ Tom Hardy, in a car. Driving. For an hour and a half. Who knew such a movie would be watchable, let alone oddly compelling? Construction foreman Ivan Locke (Hardy) is in a bit of a bind. The woman he recently had an affair with (whose voice on Locke’s speaker phone is provided by Olivia Colman) is carrying his baby and has just gone into premature labor, triggering some complications with the birth. So Ivan, feeling responsible (and rightfully so) for the woman’s situation, drops his important construction job the next morning and the opportunity to watch a big football game with his two adolescent sons (voiced by Tom Holland and Bill Milner) to be with her for the event. Ivan’s lover’s needy and vulnerable, his wife (voiced by Ruth Wilson) wants to hang his philandering balls out to dry, and the job site’s a mess without him. Determined to do the right thing for once, Ivan juggles his responsibilities via phone calls as he makes his way to witness the birth of his illegitimate child.

Movie Review: Bronson (2008)

Rating: B/ Charlie Bronson (Tom Hardy) is a guy who loves to kick the shit out of people. It’s as simple as that, this film carefully avoids wrapping Charlie’s derangement into a neat package or coming up with pat psychiatric explanation for his crazy out of control behavior. As far as we know, Bronson was never molested, beaten with a belt, or locked in a cupboard. Born Michael Peterson to average comfortably middle-class parents (Amanda Burton and Andrew Forbes), Charlie (who picked the moniker from the name of the Death Wish star with the help of his uncle (Hugh Ross,) the proprietor of a sleazy nightclub) just really loves to fight. In fact, he’s famous for it, dubbed ‘Britain’s Most Violent Prisoner’ for his unhinged savagery.

Movie Review: I Smile Back (2015)

 

Rating: B/ For the most part, the critics didn’t really seem to like this movie, and I can understand why; the protagonist is fairly unlikable, the subject matter is uncomfortable and sometimes downright unpleasant to watch,  and the film itself just kind of ends abruptly, with no definitive conclusion or explanation. I Smile Back is not a easy movie, but it is a true movie, a film for anyone who’s ever been told they have a good, blessed life, and to stop being depressed and pull themselves together for Christ’s sakes. Some people are miserable because they live under terrible circumstances, and for some people, the reason for their unhappiness is much more complicated. You can have everything in the world, and still find it hard to get up in the morning and face a day full of people who, to you, seem cruel-natured and callous.

Movie Review: Office Space (1999)

Rating: B/ I can’t relate to Office Space personally, having never worked in an environment like the one portrayed in the film, but almost twenty years after it’s original release this movie hasn’t lost it’s charm. Friends and acquaintances tell me that it is a spot-on portrayal of working in a bureaucratic office setting. And don’t let the fact that director Mike Judge created the show Beavis and Butthead deter you from watching this movie; similarities are limited to absurd humor, and the dryly satiric Office Space is much less juvenile than Judge’s crude, crass animated duo.

Movie Review: Breaking Away (1979)

Rating: B/ A film about bicycling might seem like a odd choice for someone who’s never gotten past peddling up and down the road on their bike as a small child, but I’ve always said that for me a sports movie is only as good as it’s characters and bigger themes. I have literally zero interest in sports or anything physical (as you’d be able to tell from my decidedly lumpy physique,) but luckily, Breaking Away is made up out of all the things in life; coming of age, romance, family, relationships… sure, it’s a little bit corny watching it now, but there’s so much more to this movie than the protagonist’s obsession with biking, a fixation that, like his fascination with everything Italian, only seems to grow over time.