Currently browsing the "Adaptation" category.

The Lucky One

At last check, The Lucky One had a rather unlucky 21% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I think that’s a little harsh. Sure, the movie is pure, unadulterated chickflick-romantic-drama-sap with a capital ‘S’. But if you made it through – or even sorta liked – all the other Nicholas Sparks books-turned-into-movies (The Notebook, Dear John, Message in a Bottle, The Last Song, Nights in Rodanthe…), then this one is what it is. More of the same (though far short of The Notebook).

In fact, if you saw Dear John, you may actually think you’re watching a remake of the same movie, only this time it’s starring Zac Efron (instead of Channing Tatum) as the war-scarred soldier (er, Marine) and Taylor Schilling (instead of Amanda Seyfried) as the blonde chick he falls for. And instead of a letter, there’s a photograph.

The Hunger Games

May the odds be ever in your favor. Odds are, if that means anything to you at all, then this review is totally irrelevant – you’re going to see The Hunger Games. As well you should. It’s good. It’s not “oh my gosh – this is, like, the best movie ever” good. But it does serve the book and its fans quite well. In case you’re unfamiliar, the movie is based on the first book of a young-adult, adventure science fiction trilogy by Suzanne Collins. That means we can expect at least two (or if the studios take a page from Potter and Twilight, at least three) more installments of what’s sure to be a gazillion-dollar franchise.

The premise is admittedly bizarre. Every year, a teenage boy and girl from the 12 districts of Panem are sent to the Capitol to compete in a nationally televised, fight-to-the-death competition known as The Hunger Games. The Games were created as punishment for an uprising against the Capital decades earlier – and perpetuated as a way to keep the districts in line. Think of the 12 Districts as home to the 99 percent. The Capitol houses the 1 percent.

The Games’ participants, known as Tributes, must fight one another until one survivor remains. And just like Texas with the Miss America pageant, some tributes are better prepped than others for the competition.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen may sound like a boring documentary, but it’s actually a rather charming chick flick that will likely need strong word of mouth to expand its audience beyond the indie/art house crowd. So check it out and talk it up! Trust me, there’s a strong chance you’ll like it, even if you can’t find Yemen on a map or couldn’t care less about fly fishing or the migration patterns and ecological needs of salmon.

Emily Blunt (The Young Victoria, The Devil Wears Prada) plays Harriet, a British public relations executive who is given carte blanche to help a wealthy sheik realize his dream of bringing salmon fishing to the desert. She turns to the UK’s leading fisheries expert, Dr. Alfred Jones (Ewan McGregor) for help, but he finds the entire project completely absurd. So does the British government – until the Prime Minister’s press secretary (played by Kristin Scott Thomas) decides that the salmon project is just what the government needs to divert attention from another Middle East ‘project’ that isn’t going so well – the war in Afghanistan.

We Need To Talk About Kevin

This movie has all kind of things going for it — a well-written script, beautifully paced, interesting visual themes, even great performances all around, but seriously! If you are of childbearing age and thinking of having a kid any time in your life, you might not want to see this movie, that is unless you want to know what it feels like to parent a sociopath.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a so-so drama that fails to rise above its extremely long and forgetful title. It may appeal to those who read the book, liked the book, and are curious to see how it all plays out on the big screen. But I, for one, discovered that I’m just not ready to accept a fictional story that uses 9/11 for context. The movie is not exploitative or gratuitous in its treatment of that fateful day. It just feels “too soon” to go there. The marketing tag line says: “This is not a story about September 11th. It’s about every day after”, and to some extent, that’s true. I actually think this movie would have been better served as an indie with a different trigger for the plot-line. It could have been “inspired by” the best-selling book as opposed to “adapted from” it. Anyway…

Albert Nobbs

What an odd little film! Every few years a gender switching film comes along and everyone gets excited about it (Linda Hunt in The Year of Living Dangerously, Hilary Swank in Boys Don’t Cry, Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie.) This time Glenn Close plays the title character Albert Nobbs, a timid little butler in a second-rate Dublin hotel around the turn of the 20th century. The film has a very Upstairs, Downstairs feeling, mostly downstairs, with one of the maids getting knocked up by a handyman, a typhoid scare shutting down the hotel, and the usual petty personality quirks keeping things interesting. Unfortunately, the character at the center of this film, Albert Nobbs, is not part of the fun.

A Dangerous Method

Michael Fassbender has been one extremely prolific actor this year, first as the arrogant Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre, then playing Magneto in X-men: First Class, then as the tortured sex addict in Shame, and now he gives us psychoanalyst Carl Jung in A Dangerous Method. What a range of characters! I think Jung may be his best performance (I didn’t see Magneto, but…), and A Dangerous Method is the best film in the bunch.

War Horse

A boy and his horse are at the center of this Steven Spielberg family drama, adapted from the Tony winning stage play, which was an adaptation of a children’s book. It is a typical Spielberg film, tugging on your heartstrings to the emotive strains of John Williams. Set in the beautiful English countryside, a strapping young lad, Albert, witnesses the birth of an amazing horse and watches as he matures into a gorgeous thoroughbred. Then in a stroke of luck, when he comes up for sale, Albert’s father is crazy enough to buy him, instead of a plough horse, which is what they really need. But unfortunately, World War One soon separates the young man from his beloved steed named Joey, and the film follows this incredible animal’s odyssey through the war and finally (and miraculously) back to his favorite human.

We Bought a Zoo

It’s a good thing Matt Damon didn’t succumb to warnings about working with children and animals. Because without Matt Damon, We Bought a Zoo could have been really lame. Instead, it’s a heartwarming family film that manages to tackle some pretty big issues without getting too sappy or sad.

Damon plays Benjamin Mee, a young widower struggling to raise his two kids, Dylan, 14, and Rosie, 7, in the months following his wife’s death. Desperate for a change of scenery and a fresh start, Mee moves the family out of the city and into a fixer-upper in the country that happens to be situated in the middle of a zoo that also needs some major fixer-uppin’.

The Adventures of Tintin

Isn’t Tintin supposed to be a dog? C’mon, I can’t be the only one who thought The Adventures of Tintin might be some new animated twist on the tales of a certain German Shepherd named Rin. My bad. The movie is actually based on a popular European series of comics created in 1929 by a Belgian artist known as Herge’. Tintin is not a german shepherd. He’s actually a curious young reporter-detective-adventurer who, along with his dog Snowy (a fox terrier), gets caught up in the wild and wacky world of criminals, villains, artifacts and treasure. He’s part “Brenda Starr”, part “Indiana Jones”.

From a purely visual standpoint, The Adventures of Tintin is rather stunning with its use of motion-capture technology. But the story itself falls a bit flat, even at the direction of the almighty Steven Spielberg.