Young Sean (Josh Hutcherson, The Hunger Games) is the only returning cast member from 2008’s Journey to the Center of the Earth, meaning dad Brendan Fraser is nowhere to be found, replaced here by Fast Five‘s Dwayne Johnson as stepdad Hank. (That’s called trading up.) Wasting no time, the movie has Sean and Hank crack […]
Fast Five
Posted inArts & Culture
Rio Sex Comedy
But, wait … aren’t Rio de Janeiro and Istanbul separated by some 6,300 miles? Yes, and that kind of lackadaisical looseness is what keeps the movie from building on initial strength. Continuing the year’s apparent trend of Brazilian settings, “Rio Sex Comedy” is less colorful than the animated “Rio” and less slick than “Fast Five,” […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Mr. Nice
Here, the switch from mere Oxford student to corrupt bad boy is flipped with one look at the stunner Elsa Pataky (“Fast Five“) and a taste of cannabis. From there, the path of Marks (Rhys Ifans, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1”) is marked with marriage, divorce, the IRA, MI-6, LSD, hashish, arrests, […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Drive
From the pink, cursive typeface and pulsing, instrumental music of the opening credits, audience members will feel as if something is out of place, as if the movie is just a bit “off.” That’s because director Nicolas Winding Refn (“Bronson”) has immersed this tale in the style of Michael Mann’s “Thief,” rather than today’s “Transporter” […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Grand Prix
While “Fast Five” continues burning up the box office, Warner Home Video brings one of the all-time great racing movies to Blu-ray with 1966’s “Grand Prix.” Directed by the great John Frankenheimer (“The Manchurian Candidate,” “Seconds,” “Ronin”), it hails from the days when going to the movies was a real event. This, for instance, comes […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Fast Five
And understandably so, as the first and fourth films failed to rev my fun engine. Yet “Fast Five” achieves that seemingly insurmountable peak. Once worldwide receipts are counted, I suspect its tally will be larger than any of its predecessors. Part of that is because it mostly glosses over what the 2001 original so off-puttingly […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Of Gods and Men
While not a documentary, “Of Gods and Men” focuses on a group that is nonetheless real: French monks. Either way, you can’t get further from “Fast Five” this weekend. Hope you like subtitles. Opening Friday exclusively at AMC Quail Springs Mall 24, 2501 W Memorial, the Cannes Film Festival winner from writer/director Xavier Beauvois […]