You really think your family’s lookin’ out for you?
I think we’re wasting money on all the “Just Say No” programs we think are going to keep kids off drugs. Two hours with someone like Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale) should convince anyone that drugs are a one-way ticket to nowhere. The first time we see him in The Fighter, the ex-boxer is living for two things: his rose-colored memories of the time he knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard and his next vial of crack.
Do I look like a guy with a plan?
Comic book movies are all grow’d up and, boy, are they gloomy. Christopher Nolan’s follow-up to his brilliant Batman Begins goes beyond its predecessor and gives us a rich, multi-layered story with one of the more original takes on the comic book villain I can remember. With the creative success of this movie, we can officially write off the Tim Burton Batmans as an unfortunate detour (and the Joel Schumacher films as a large pothole in that detour).
You’re conscience is sensitive, Dan. I don’t think it’s my favorite part of you.
Unlike the South, the western does seem to rise again. And again and again and again. The genre has been pronounced dead more often than Generalissimo Francisco Franco on Saturday Night Live, but they keep making them. And despite the tendency of the Horse Opera to endlessly recycle plots, this is one of the few explicit remakes I can recall, save for the odd TV movie of the week.
3:10 to Yuma is a movie with its feet in two eras. (more…)
It’s not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.
The first two Batman movies may not have been everyone’s cup of tea, but at least they were infused with director Tim Burton’s quirky sensibilities. The second two, directed by Joel Shumacher, were just a train wreck.
The fifth movie does us all a favor by pushing the big cinematic reset button and returning Batman to the beginning, placing him in a universe that has less in common with Edward Scissorhands and the 1960s TV series and more in common with the Batman of the comic books. In other words, the real Batman has made it to the big screen. Finally.
