Movie Review – The International (2009)
by HELEN GEIB
However you think The International is going to end, it doesn’t end that way. The finale is only one of a number of unexpected developments in this ingeniously plotted thriller. That the twists and turns don’t come at the expense of plausibility or coherence is one of the film’s many pleasures. Read more 
Movie Review – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
by HELEN GEIB
How well you like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button will depend to a great extent on your tolerance for framing stories, voiceover narration, and fortune-cookie philosophizing, elements that singly and in combination make up a very large part of the film’s inordinately long running time. Read more
Ten Highest Grossing Films of 2008
by RISHI AGRAWAL
Next week, Commentary Track will start rolling out its writers’ picks for the top films of 2008. And with the Oscars approaching, there is a lot of buzz about what the best films of last year were. But, suppose you don’t care about that and want to know what the most popular films of last year were. We’ve got you covered.
We haven’t been spending a lot of time on box office receipts lately, so this is as good a place as any to announce that the Box Office Recap feature will return in March. It will be monthly, and list the three highest-grossing films of each week from the month before and the ten highest-grossing films from two months before (to allow films to get a full run). We’ll also bring back the Box Office Recap game, where you’ll be asked to pick the three highest-grossing films of the month.
This year’s list brings the usual fare. We have three superhero films, four animated features, and two films featuring iconic action heroes. There are a couple surprises, though. First of all, only four of these films are sequels, proving that Hollywood may still have original ideas. And, perhaps most strangely, two of the year’s most critically acclaimed films appear on this list. Read more
Movie Review – Milk (2008)
by TOM NIXON
Earlier in the year Gus Van Sant churned out the desperately self-indulgent Paranoid Park, sporting the kind of disaster in tone characteristic of mid-life crisis filmmaking. Milk unfortunately flies off in the other direction; a by-the-numbers biopic of assassinated gay rights activist Harvey Milk (Sean Penn) which tends to just sit there like an old man’s movie, making you long for that distinctive Van Sant seal irrespective of application. Read more
Movie Review – Revolutionary Road (2008)
by RISHI AGRAWAL
I know there’s a fairly large group of people who find that Sam Mendes’ Oscar-winning directorial debut, American Beauty, is overrated. I understand why people don’t like it – they find it overwrought and pretentious, but I still think it’s a wonderful portrayal of suburban angst. His latest effort, Revolutionary Road, based on the seminal Richard Yates novel, returns to many of the themes of American Beauty. Read more
DVD of the Week – Review of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)
by TOM NIXON
I was originally wary of Andrew Dominik’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, its title and premise indicative of an increasingly pervasive tendency to make overt and digestible the lurking subtext of ’70s revisionist classics. Altman understood with McCabe and Mrs Miller the necessity of a less-is-more approach amidst an age of information overload; only absences speak magnitudes in a world where, to paraphrase a certain emblem of our era, here we’re allowed everything all of the time. You’ve got to revolve around tone and rhythm – it’s the only way to bring anything meaningful to the field outside of intellectual posturing. Fortunately, where Jesse James was concerned I needn’t have worried. Read more
Movie Review – Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009)
by HELEN GEIB
I caught up over the weekend with the first big hit of 2009, Paul Blart: Mall Cop. It’s not a notable or accomplished movie, but it made me smile. Mall Cop is a likable, unpretentious comedy; its easygoing good humor makes the whole greater than the sum of its parts. If you’re looking for something to see with the kids or the parents, you could do a lot worse. Read more
Movie Review – Frost/Nixon (2008)
by TOM NIXON
Very contrived, very hammy, very Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon is the year’s mindlessly entertaining underdog sports blockbuster thinly disguised as political biopic. Guiding you through the action with the most condescending framing device available (a host of explicatory documentary-style interview segments), it milks every last drop of drama out of its subject without staking a single claim to profundity. In that way it’s hard to dislike, and impossible to respect – after all, it sure as hell doesn’t respect you. Read more
Hollywood Releases Preview – February, 2009
by HELEN GEIB
These are the films scheduled for general release in February, 2009. Title links are to the film’s page in the internet movie database.
February 6
Coraline – Animated film about a girl who opens a secret door in her room and discovers it’s easier to enter an alternate reality than to leave it. The trailer promises eye-catching animation. Directed by Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas).
He’s Just Not That Into You – Romantic dramedy about the ups and downs of coupledom. Hip or not, a self-help book is unpromising source material for a movie. The high-wattage cast includes Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Aniston, Ben Affleck, and Jennifer Connelly.
Pink Panther 2 – Steve Martin reprises his take on the bumbling Inspector Clouseau character originated by Peter Sellers. The incongruously heavyweight supporting cast features Jean Reno, Emily Mortimer, Andy Garcia, Aishwarya Rai, and Alfred Molina. Read more
DVD of the Week – Review of Pride and Glory (2008)
by HELEN GEIB
Pride and Glory is a police corruption drama starring Ed Norton, Colin Farrell, Jon Voight, and Noah Emmerich as the men of the Tierney clan. The Tierneys are an extended family of New York City police officers: brothers Francis Jr. (Emmerich) and Ray (Norton); their father Francis Sr. (Voight); and their brother-in-law Jimmy Eagan (Farrell). The plot revolves around Ray’s investigation of the killing of several police officers in an apparent shoot-out with a drug dealer. He discovers evidence of an intra-police unit criminal conspiracy that may implicate two of his own. The fallout is an attempted cover-up that leads to more deaths and exposes the fault-lines within the family. Read more
