Arts and Culture (Movie Reviews)

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 5/3/12

The Pirates! Band of Misfits

Yo-ho! Yo-ho! A claymation life for me!

The pirate captain (Hugh Grant: Did You Hear About the Morgans?) is having a bad year. As the Pirate of the Year competition looms large, the good captain has little to show for his pillaging. Other pirates like Cutlass Liz (Salma Hayek: Puss in Boots), Peg Leg Hastings (Lenny Henry: Tinga Tinga Tales) and Black Bellamy (Jeremy Piven: Entourage) boast rare jewels and mountains of gold. The pirate captain? He has a lustrous beard and a very fat parrot. He’s the joke of...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 4/26/12

Chimpanzee

Nature is cute, if you live in a Disney documentary

Oscar is a baby chimpanzee, living a blissful life in the jungles of Uganda. His mom dotes on him. He romps with other baby chimps during upbeat musical sequences. But in the distance the evil Scar and his hoard of chimp raiders threaten Oscar’s idyllic life. If it sounds like a Disney movie, it is. The latest documentary from Disneynature, Chimpanzee, makes a monkey out of the term documentary. This is nature without death. This...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 4/19/12

The Cabin in the Woods

Zombies and ghosts and mermen. Oh my!

When five attractive college co-eds spend the weekend at a creepy isolated cabin in the woods, it’s no surprise they’re marked for death. We’ve seen this movie, and it always ends the same way: Someone gets high, someone flashes her breasts and almost everyone dies. Such is the world of slasher filmmaking. Fans love it just the way it is. It’s a formula so common that many movies have poked fun at its absurdity while still getting...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 4/19/12

Bully

It’s hard not to beat up on this well-intentioned film

Alex is a sweet kid with huge lips, glasses and ears that stick out. To an adult, he’s an adorably awkward adolescent who hasn’t grown into his features. To his peers, he’s a target. Every day his school bus ride is a gauntlet of humiliation. He’s punched, choked and stabbed with pencils. When he comes home, his sister calls him a loser. But Alex smiles because at this point he’s used to it. His parents complain to the school...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 4/12/12

We Need to Talk About Kevin

Children can be little monsters. But if you give birth to a real monster? We Need to Talk About Kevin is a nightmare about the nature of evil. When a pregnancy interrupts Eva Khatchadourian’s (Tilda Swinton: Chronicles of Narnia) exciting life of travel and extravagance, she reluctantly settles down to play the roles of wife and mommy. It’s not a believable role for Eva. She doesn’t like Kevin, her son, (Jasper Newell), and he,...

Article - Movie Reviews; by DIana Beechener - 4/5/12

Mirror Mirror

Sword fighting, dwarves, lush visuals and not a script in sight

Once upon a time, a movie mogul imagined it was time for another adaptation of Snow White. In a fairytale world, this would mean a beautiful production with excellent performances. In reality, what we got was a poison apple: Beautiful on the outside and deadly dull beneath the surface. The story, which is a mishmash of several fairy tales, follows Snow White (Lily Collins: Abduction), a princess who is confined to her castle bedroom by her cruel stepmom (...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 3/29/12

The Hunger Games

And you thought your teens were tough

Adolescence is a difficult period. Wondering whether your crush likes you back. Picking out a cool Facebook profile picture. Trying to figure out txt spk. For Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence: X-Men: First Class) those troublesome teen years are a bit harder. She has to fight other teens to the death in the annual Hunger Games. Suddenly pre-calc doesn’t seem so bad, does it, kids? The Hunger Games are the biggest event in...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 3/22/12

21 Jump Street

Sometimes crass is all you need

21 Jump Street is an immature comedy, full of penis references, bodily function humor, comedic violence and drug jokes that appeal to the lowest common denominator. I laughed through the whole movie. Sometimes the best humor comes from rude places. But if you dislike strong language and sexual humor, you’ll have the vapors before the 20-minute mark. The movie focuses on two high school kids: insecure nerd Schmidt (Jonah Hill: The...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 3/15/12

John Carter

Beautiful effects and interplanetary drama isn’t enough to make up for a terrible lead

When confederate soldier John Carter (Taylor Kitsch: Friday Night Lights) realizes he’s on Mars, he is filled with wonder and amazement. I tell you this now, because it’s hard to decipher what Carter thinks or feels since Kitsch plays him with a slack-jawed blankness that makes you wonder if there’s enough air on the red planet to support brainwaves. This is a shame, as the movie has been in development for 79 years. Disney should have waited for an even 80...

Article - Movie Reviews; by Diana Beechener - 3/8/12

A Separation

Sometimes life won’t let you make good decisions

Nader (Peyman Moadi: About Elly) and Simin (Leila Hatami: Aseman-e mahboob) are in the middle of a bitter divorce and custody battle, made more bitter by the fact that neither wants to end the marriage. After years of paperwork and expense, the Iranian government has granted the couple visas so that they can emigrate. Simin has been dreaming of this day so that she can move her daughter Termeh (Sarina Farhadi in her screen debut) to a country that offers more opportunities...