Everything about this screen adaptation of Ayn Rand’s novel feels like daytime television: from the heavy-handed dialogue to the sluggish pace (setting itself up for part II) —no wonder, it’s the first feature TV soap actor Paul Johansson has directed. In a dystopian 2016 US, unrest in the Middle East means peak oil, and railroads […]
Molly Segal
Posted inArts + Music
Margin Call illuminates the Wall Street shuffle
In the nascent stages of the financial crisis, employees at a Manhattan investment bank weigh out the odds and their options— “be first, be smarter, or cheat,” as the film’s motto goes. For us lay people, J.C. Chandor’s debut venture penning and directing a feature film is an enticing glimpse into the trading world: nobody […]
Posted inLifestyle
Alternative holiday film festival
Ted Demme’s 1994 caper comedy, The Ref, is a good place to start. Gus (Denis Leary) is a burglar on the run who takes Caroline (Judy Davis) and Lloyd Chasseur (Kevin Spacey), a dysfunctional married couple, hostage in their home as he hides from cops trolling the wealthy Connecticut town. Davis and Spacey argue so […]
Posted inArts + Music
Aram Kouyoumdjian: sound mixer and video director
The film industry can be a tough way to make a living in Canada. It’s sheer passion that drives many of its devotees to keep going. Aram Kouyoumdjian falls into that camp. “I’ve kind of just been floating through my career—I never went to school for this, I just work a lot,” says Kouyoumdjian, who […]
Posted inArts + Music
The Muppets fresh and sweet
Jim Henson’s Muppets return in all their musical, wisecracking glory 30 years after their eponymous show ended. Gary (Jason Segel), his girlfriend Mary (Amy Adams) and his Muppet brother Walter (voiced by Peter Linz) head to Hollywood and rally up Kermit and co. to rescue the abandoned Muppet studios from oil baron Tex Richmond (Chris […]
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Hugo full of nostalgic magic
Martin Scorsese makes 3D magic out of Brian Selznick’s book, The Invention of Hugo Cabret. Orphan Hugo (Asa Butterfield) lives in a bustling Paris train station, where he tinkers with clocks and ponders the riddle behind an automaton, a souvenir of his late father. Verbose bookworm Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz) befriends Hugo—the two unfurl a […]
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Happy Feet 2 busts a move
CGI dancing penguins re-interpret pop hits and hip hop classics in George Miller’s 3D sequel to his 2006 Happy Feet. Mumble (Elijah Wood) is all grown up and his and Gloria’s (Pink) son, Erik (Ava Acres), struggles to fit in—he can’t dance, just as Mumble couldn’t sing when he was a chick. When their rookery […]
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The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 totally unsatisfying
Breaking Dawn isn’t a movie; it’s yet another installment of daytime television on the big screen, utilitarian dialogue and O.C. style soundtrack included. For people who haven’t tuned in to Stephenie Meyer’s book-turned-movie franchise, don’t expect an on-screen plot debrief to lure you in. Bella (Kristen Stewart) and vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson) get hitched—an hour […]
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Dreamlike Melancholia beautiful, problematic
A digital, slow motion apocalypse: a dreamlike juxtaposition of beauty and death, as a menacing planet swallows earth whole, to the music from Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde. This is the prelude to Lars von Trier’s Melancholia, a movie in two chapters for two sisters, Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), who look nothing alike […]
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Stuffy ol’ J. Edgar
Director Clint Eastwood does American time travel, from the Bolsheviks to Nixon, tracking J. Edgar Hoover’s (makeup-laden Leonardo DiCaprio) life from the birth of the FBI to his death. Hoover’s portrayed as much a hero (for his overhaul of forensics) as a bigot and a liar. With the decade hopping, we’re kept at such a […]
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The Way is long
Actor/writer/director Emilio Estevez casts his dad (Martin Sheen) as Tom Avery, whose only son, Daniel (Estevez), is killed as he commences his pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago. The 60-something Tom decides to make the pilgrimage himself, Daniel’s ashes in tow. En route, he collects a slew of companions—Sarah (Deborah Kara Unger), Joost (Yorick van […]
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Jack and Jill go for a shill
This Happy Madison production, written by Adam Sandler and directed by Dennis Dugan (Just Go with It), doesn’t live up to Sandler’s glory days. What should’ve been a silly three-minute Saturday Night Live sketch is blown to epic proportions: Adam Sandler plays twins. Jack Sadelstein can’t stand Jill Sadelstein, a stereotype of a loud, obnoxious […]
