Batman Returns is undeniably defined by the influence of its director, Tim Burton. This is both a positive and a negative for the film’s overall success as a big-screen depiction of the Batman legend. On one hand Batman has never been given a more arresting aesthetic treatment. The production design by Bo Welch and the…Read more Film Review: Batman Returns (1992)
Film Reviews
Film Review: The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006)
Thematically complex, emotionally powerful and brutally un-romanticized, Ken Loach‘s The Wind That Shakes the Barely is a towering portrait of the Irish War of Independence and is one of the prolific director’s best films. While hardly objective in its treatment of history (all of the British figures are defined only by their anonymity or their…Read more Film Review: The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006)
Film Review: Pocahontas (1995)
In the 1990′s Walt Disney Studios owned animation. It defined a generation and produced a string of classic films unfaithful to their source material yet artistically pretty great. Affectionately titled "The Disney Renaissance" by The Walt Disney Corporation stockholders, the animation studio gave audiences the one-two-three-four punch of The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast…Read more Film Review: Pocahontas (1995)
Film Review: Iron Man 3 (2013)
In the third Iron Man film, the adage, "A hero is only as good as his villain," certainly applies. Iron Man 3's baddie easily eclipses such forgettable foes as Whiplash and Obadiah Stane in terms of banality. However, what's worse is that the film's eponymous hero, portrayed once more with a snarky playfulness by Robert…Read more Film Review: Iron Man 3 (2013)
Film Review: Super Fly (1972)
Stagnant plotting and glacial-speed editing define this 1972 Blaxploitation feature from director Gordon Parks Jr. Starring Ron O’Neal as the ridiculously named central character, Priest Youngblood, Super Fly is a movie where nothing much happens and adds very little to the conversation regarding the socio-economic status of African-Americans that was so eloquently expressed through other…Read more Film Review: Super Fly (1972)
Film Review: Looks and Smiles (1981)
Some films are made solely for entertainment value and require only a passive level of involvement. Ken Loach does not make those kind of movies. It would be difficult to find someone ready to describe any of Ken Loach’s films as rip-roaring entertainment. Many of his films are stark, minimalistic affairs, shot either in tight, unforgiving interior locations or out…Read more Film Review: Looks and Smiles (1981)
Film Review: No Country for Old Men (2007)
There is very little that hasn’t already been said about The Coen Brothers' brilliant adaptation of Cormac McCarthy‘s apocalyptic novel, No Country for Old Men. The film offers a set-up that couldn’t be any simpler. Good ol’ boy Texan, Llewelyn Moss (played with tactful and effective gruffness by Josh Brolin) blunders into the aftermath of a…Read more Film Review: No Country for Old Men (2007)
Film Review: Bullet to the Head (2013)
You can almost smell the formaldehyde emanating from Bullet to the Head, the new Sly Stallone vehicle directed by the ancient and irrelevant Walter Hill. From the formulaic “odd-couple” mash-up of Stallone’s thuggish Jimmy Bobo and the nebbish cop Taylor Kwon (Suang Yang), to the frankly pedantic action scenes, Bullet to the Head doesn’t quite…Read more Film Review: Bullet to the Head (2013)
Film Review: Southland Tales (2008)
Richard Kelly’s audacious Donnie Darko burst into our collective culture at the beginning of the 2000s. Its subject matter was eerily congruent with our own seemingly apocalyptic times. Yet after garnering critical and financial goodwill, not to mention muscling into the Hot Topic market, Kelly went into a period of inactivity that seemed to border on…Read more Film Review: Southland Tales (2008)
Film Review: The Dark Knight Returns – Part II (2012)
Inconsistent yet still undeniably entertaining, the second part of Warner Brothers' The Dark Knight Returns (DKR) adaptation is a big film that wrestles admirably with its complex source material. “He can fly!” exclaims an awestruck cop (while observing a temporarily aerial Batman) during one of the film’s many well-done action sequences. The same thing can occasionally…Read more Film Review: The Dark Knight Returns – Part II (2012)
Adam Mohrbacher 