Movie Review: กรกฎาคม 2011

วันพุธที่ 27 กรกฎาคม พ.ศ. 2554

Hollywood Classics Title Index To All Movies Reviewed In Books 1-24

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Not just a complete index to all the films detailed and discussed in all 24 books of the Hollywood Classics series, this 344-page final book, also provides exhaustive details and reviews of 80 additional movies. Packed with information, these reviews were not previously included because they were too long and/or too important – or simply because they didn’t fit into the overall theme of any individual book. These additional Hollywood movie classics include All the King’s Men, If I Were King, Red Dust, Raintree County, The Sun Shines Bright, People Will Talk, I Know Where I’m Going, Ivanhoe, The Big Store, The Dolly Sisters, The Desert Fox, Out of the Past, The Palm Beach Story, The Prisoner of Zenda, The Snake Pit, A Streetcar Named Desire, Romeo and Juliet (three versions), The Ten Commandments, Vertigo, The War of the Worlds, Waterloo Bridge, Ice Station Zebra, Only Angels Have Wings, The Lady Eve, Trouble Along the Way, Brewster’s Millions, In This Our Life and It’s a Wonderful World.Not just a complete index to all the films detailed and discussed in all 24 books of the Hollywood Classics series, this 344-page final book, also provides exhaustive details and reviews of 80 additional movies. Packed with information, these reviews were not previously included because they were too long and/or too important – or simply because they didn’t fit into the overall theme of any individual book. These additional Hollywood movie classics include All the King’s Men, If I Were King, Red Dust, Raintree County, The Sun Shines Bright, People Will Talk, I Know Where I’m Going, Ivanhoe, The Big Store, The Dolly Sisters, The Desert Fox, Out of the Past, The Palm Beach Story, The Prisoner of Zenda, The Snake Pit, A Streetcar Named Desire, Romeo and Juliet (three versions), The Ten Commandments, Vertigo, The War of the Worlds, Waterloo Bridge, Ice Station Zebra, Only Angels Have Wings, The Lady Eve, Trouble Along the Way, Brewster’s Millions, In This Our Life and It’s a Wonderful World. more...

Max Payne (DVD)

Max Payne from Fox

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MAX PAYNE - DVD Movie
Any film based on a first-person shooter video game should, as a rule of thumb, be full of epic shootouts on a level equal to Sergio Leone or the Wachowski Brothers, and in that regard, Max Payne is an unqualified success. Mark Wahlberg also lives up to the game's pedigree by brooding mightily as the title hero, a big city detective mourning the murder of his wife and child. Revenge is, of course, Payne's ultimate goal, and with the assistance of slinky Russian hitwoman Mila Kunis, he dishes it out in elaborate set pieces overflowing with gymnastic gun play. Viewers seeking just that and nothing more will get their money's worth from John Moore's film adaptation, and most likely be impressed by its fashionably gloomy art direction and cinematography. Those seeking a bit more than gunpowder and gristle will find Max Payne utterly derivative of a half-dozen better films (Christopher Nolan's Batman films, most notably) and violent to the point of cartoon absurdity. They may find some refuge in appealing supporting turns by Donal Logue and Chris "Ludacris" Bridges as diametrically opposed cops and Beau Bridges, who offers his usual roguish charm as Payne's former superior. --Paul Gaita

Beyond Max Payne on DVD

Babylon A.D.

Boondock Saints

Donnie Darko

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Your Colossal Main Feature Plus Full Support Program (Hollywood Classics) (Kindle Edition)

Your Colossal Main Feature Plus Full Support Program (hollywood Classics) from

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Let's go back in time for a moment and pretend you are looking in on an average neighborhood theater manager in a big city like New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh or Detroit, in the classic days when Hollywood movies were the number one entertainment choice of the nation. On the one hand, our manager was obviously anxious to please his patrons by booking a highly advertised, ready-sold, "colossal" main feature such as "Jezebel", "A Star Is Born", "The Rains Came", "High Noon", "I'm No Angel", "The Great Ziegfeld", "100 Men and a Girl", "Mad About Music", "Manhattan Melodrama", "One Night of Love", "Rio Rita", "Road to Zanzibar", "Mr Deeds Goes To Town", "Mr Smith Goes To Washington", "Little Miss Marker", "The Mark of Zorro", "The Merry Widow", "The Great Waltz", "King of Jazz", "Ball of Fire", "Mutiny on the Bounty" or “Alexander's Ragtime Band". On the other hand, patrons were supremely anxious to obtain "value" for their admittance money. They wanted a program that ran not less than three or even four hours. They demanded not only a colossal main feature, but a supporting program comprising a lesser movie with a running time of 70 minutes or perhaps slightly less, plus a cartoon, plus a short subject of one or two reels. So here are detailed not only main attractions (including all those listed above), but some of the lesser movies that clamored for the manager’s attention. The choice usually depended on the cost of the main feature. The more expensive the main attraction, the less money was available to hire a series entry like "Fly-Away Baby" (released by Warner Brothers as an entry in their Torchy Blane series). Instead, the manager would opt for a movie he could hire at the lowest possible flat rate, such as "Death from a Distance" (released through Chesterfield, a Poverty Row company that specialized in "B" movies), or "Caribbean Mystery" (a 20th Century-Fox release that the studio had no faith in), or "Bowery at Midnight" (Bela Lugosi in a Monogram picture), or "Trouble in Texas" (Tex Ritter and Rita Hayworth in a Grand National release), but not RKO's highly popular (and therefore comparatively expensive) "Mexican Spitfire" series starring the exotically excitable Lupe Velez. These of course are just a few of the movies discussed and detailed in "Your Colossal Main Feature Plus Full Support Program". In addition to a wide selection of both main and supporting features, the book also examines some of the typical cartoons and short subjects available.
Let's go back in time for a moment and pretend you are looking in on an average neighborhood theater manager in a big city like New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh or Detroit, in the classic days when Hollywood movies were the number one entertainment choice of the nation. On the one hand, our manager was obviously anxious to please his patrons by booking a highly advertised, ready-sold, "colossal" main feature such as "Jezebel", "A Star Is Born", "The Rains Came", "High Noon", "I'm No Angel", "The Great Ziegfeld", "100 Men and a Girl", "Mad About Music", "Manhattan Melodrama", "One Night of Love", "Rio Rita", "Road to Zanzibar", "Mr Deeds Goes To Town", "Mr Smith Goes To Washington", "Little Miss Marker", "The Mark of Zorro", "The Merry Widow", "The Great Waltz", "King of Jazz", "Ball of Fire", "Mutiny on the Bounty" or “Alexander's Ragtime Band". On the other hand, patrons were supremely anxious to obtain "value" for their admittance money. They wanted a program that ran not less than three or even four hours. They demanded not only a colossal main feature, but a supporting program comprising a lesser movie with a running time of 70 minutes or perhaps slightly less, plus a cartoon, plus a short subject of one or two reels. So here are detailed not only main attractions (including all those listed above), but some of the lesser movies that clamored for the manager’s attention. The choice usually depended on the cost of the main feature. The more expensive the main attraction, the less money was available to hire a series entry like "Fly-Away Baby" (released by Warner Brothers as an entry in their Torchy Blane series). Instead, the manager would opt for a movie he could hire at the lowest possible flat rate, such as "Death from a Distance" (released through Chesterfield, a Poverty Row company that specialized in "B" movies), or "Caribbean Mystery" (a 20th Century-Fox release that the studio had no faith in), or "Bowery at Midnight" (Bela Lugosi in a Monogram picture), or "Trouble in Texas" (Tex Ritter and Rita Hayworth in a Grand National release), but not RKO's highly popular (and therefore comparatively expensive) "Mexican Spitfire" series starring the exotically excitable Lupe Velez. These of course are just a few of the movies discussed and detailed in "Your Colossal Main Feature Plus Full Support Program". In addition to a wide selection of both main and supporting features, the book also examines some of the typical cartoons and short subjects available.
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Videohound's Golden Movie Retriever (Paperback)

The Brave One (Widescreen Edition) (DVD)

The Brave One (widescreen Edition) from Warner Brothers

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"Why don‘t they stop me?" Erica Bain wonders. Bain, a popular N.Y radio host, watched her fiancé die and nearly lost her own life to a vicious, random attack. Now she discovers a stranger within herself, an armed wanderer in the urban night, out for vengeance and at war with her own soul. Two-time Academy Award winner Jodie Foster, as Erica, joins Oscar nominee Terrence Howard, as a determined cop hot on her trail. Erica?s future is uncertain, but one thing is not: THE BRAVE ONE is a high- tension thriller that packs a visceral and emotional punch.Neil Jordan's somber The Brave One is a lot of things. A reflective movie about a crime victim's sense of dislocation and isolation from her own life following a harrowing trauma, the film will strike a chord with a lot of people who have known violence. The Brave One is also a provocative drama about the nature of justice, a theme explored endlessly in American movies that typically find law enforcement wanting. In Jordan's film, however, the conflict between instinctive vigilantism and legal protocols is approached with more deliberateness and complexity than usual. Finally, despite its seriousness of purpose, The Brave One, to a certain extent, is drearily tethered to the old atrocity-and-revenge genre, bumping along to the familiar, Death Wish-like rhythms of an avenger seeking successive conflicts with bad guys he or she can blow away.

Somewhat at cross-purposes, The Brave One stars Jodie Foster in a shattering performance as Erica Bain, a popular essayist on a public radio station in New York. In love and engaged to David (Naveen Andrews), a doctor, Erica and her fiancé are brutally attacked one night by a gang of thugs. David is killed but Erica survives, only to find herself a stranger in her own skin, facing down her fears by shooting violent criminals.

With the city riveted by her anonymous actions, Erica becomes an object of curiosity for a police detective (an excellent Terrence Howard) disillusioned by his own struggles to protect the innocent from truly evil men. Jordan's previous films (The Crying Game, Breakfast on Pluto) resonate with The Brave One's most interesting angle, i.e., that each of us possesses a hidden element in our identities that comes out in extreme circumstances, making us wonder who we really are. It's all excellent food for thought, but the film squanders much of its significance by thrusting Erica into numerous, outlandish situations in which her only alternative is to put a bullet in a bad guy. The result is a smart film tediously structured like a disposable B movie. --Tom Keogh Features: ?Why don?t they stop me?? Erica Bain wonders. Bain, a popular N.Y radio host, watched her fianc? die and nearly lost her own life to a vicious, random attack. Now she discovers a stranger within herself, an armed wanderer in the urban night, out for vengeance and at war with her own soul. Two-time Academy Award winner Jodie Foster, as Erica, joins Oscar nominee Terrence Howard, as a determined cop more...

Next (DVD)

Next from Paramount Home Video

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Academy Award winner Nicolas Cage, Julianne Moore and Jessica Biel join forces to bring you the heart-pounding thriller that is Next. Cris Johnson (Cage) earns his living in a seedy Las Vegas magic act, but his ability to see a few minutes into the future is authentic. Government agent Callie Ferris (Oscar nominee Moore) knows this, and relentlessly recruits him to help thwart a terrorist group from detonating a nuclear bomb in the heart of Los Angeles. Will the reluctant hero join the desperate race against the clock by daring to see what is Next? Featuring non-stop action, explosive special effects and adrenaline-charged Special Features, this is an exciting adventure you won't want to miss!

Special Features
Making The Best Next Thing
The Next "Grand Idea"
Two Minutes In The Future With Jessica Biel
Visualizing The Next MoveThe weirdness of actor Nicolas Cage and the weirdness of science-fiction author Philip K. Dick seem like a natural fit. The premise, taken from a short story by Dick, is a good one: A mediocre Las Vegas magician named Chris Johnson (Cage) can see into the future--but only about two minutes at the most. Just enough to pull off his act and to make some money at the gambling tables, so long as he's discreet. Unfortunately, he hasn't been discreet enough; a government agent (Julianne Moore) has sussed out his precognitive talent and wants to use him to track down terrorists. But all Johnson cares about is a beautiful young woman (Jessica Biel, The Illusionist) that he can see in his future--much further in his future than he's ever seen before. Next has flashes that point to a much, much better movie than it turned out to be. A sequence in which Johnson, clairvoyantly explores all the different permutations of how he might approach his mystery woman is both funny and thought-provoking, and when Johnson avoids pursuers by knowing just the right moment to turn a corner or duck his head, it's smart and suspenseful. Unfortunately, the terrorist part of the plot is utterly perfunctory and precognition is reduced to an action movie gimmick. Somewhere in there is the kernel of a romantic comedy about precognition that's just waiting to be made. Cage gives a solid if unsurprising performance, Moore is basically earning a paycheck, but Biel is unexpectedly good (and her part is considerably better-written than your usual romantic interest); her performance suggests a better future than anyone might have predicted. --Bret Fetzer

Beyond Next

More Nick Cage on DVD

The Author that Inspired the Movie

The Soundtrack

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Brideshead Revisited (DVD)

Brideshead Revisited from Buena Vista Home Video

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Inspired by the best-selling novel, Brideshead Revisited is a riveting drama of forbidden love, power and betrayal, featuring stunning performances by Academy Award winner Emma Thompson (Best Actress, Howard s End, 1992) and Matthew Goode (The Lookout). When the charming aristocrat Sebastian invites Charles Ryder to his family's estate, Charles becomes seduced by the opulent lifestyle of the Marchmain family, and by Julia, Sebastian's sister. As their romance deepens, repercussions follow, and Charles discovers that at Brideshead, love, money and power come at a price. It's a spellbinding story you'll want to revisit again and again. Bonus Features include Deleted Scenes
Filmmakers' Audio Commentary
The World Of Brideshead FeaturetteFor director Julian Jarrold (Becoming Jane), this sumptuous production represents a two-fold challenge: taking on a classic novel and a celebrated television production (Brideshead Revisited premiered on PBS in 1982). Thankfully, he's up to the task. Adapted by Andrew Davies (Pride and Prejudice) and Jeremy Brock (Mrs. Brown), Evelyn Waugh's 1945 text tracks the hard-won maturation of artist-turned-soldier Charles Ryder (Match Point's Matthew Goode). At the optimistic outset, the middle-class striver enters Oxford where he meets Sebastian Flyte (Perfume's Ben Whishaw), black-sheep scion of the Catholic Marchmain clan. Through his hedonistic friend, Ryder gets to know Flyte's sister, Julia (Hayley Atwell), and the dynamic changes. Were this a Jane Austen adaptation, Ryder's financial shortcomings would present the biggest obstacle, but the indomitable Lady Marchmain (Emma Thompson, cast against type) concentrates her disapproval on Ryder's atheism. Sebastian, on the other hand, wants Charles for himself; his drinking accelerates once he realizes Ryder loves Julia more. As World War I gives way to II, Ryder tangles with the Marchmains until forced to choose between freedom and compromise. In the end, comparing a two-hour movie to a 12-hour series makes as much sense as comparing a drawing to a sculpture. Both qualify as art, but one reveals more dimensions than the other. Like the series, Jarrold's narrative loses some steam once the focus shifts from Sebastian to Julia, but Goode's deft performance as Charles Ryder is just as riveting as that of Jeremy Irons before him. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

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