“What do you think the odds are that during the journey she might show him how to loosen up a little bit and enjoy himself, while he teaches her a few valuable life lessons about adulthood and responsibility? If there was an original idea in Jesse Gabe’s screenplay it died of loneliness long before reaching the screen.” – Movie Mezzanine, 04/29/2015
“A brawny historical melodrama with a twinge of magic realism amongst the oft-conflicting tones, what the movie lacks in discipline and polish it makes up for in sheer sincerity. The Water Diviner is a proudly old-fashioned, genuinely heartfelt picture so damned earnest that Crowe seems to be all but daring you not to like it. I liked it a lot.” – Movie Mezzanine, 04/22/2015
THE FORGER *
Starring John Travolta, Christopher Plummer, Tye Sheridan, Abigail Spencer and Jennifer Ehle. Screenplay by Richard D’Ovidio. Directed by Philip Martin.
“There was a time when this might have felt perhaps not quite as exhausted as it does during this particular moment in pop culture. With the surfeit of podcasts, chat shows, and tell-all autobiographies, comedians seem to spend more time these days pontificating on the existential dilemmas of being comedians than actually telling jokes.” – Movie Mezzanine, 04/20/2015
“When we review films, it’s very easy to subscribe to the auteur theory. But what you find is that there are hundreds of decisions that go into making a film. If you’re lucky, there are also hundreds of people making a film. To attribute the cause and effect to any single human being now strikes me as inaccurate at best, misleading at worst.” – Movie Mezzanine, 04/20/2015
“A slippery, enigmatic and altogether mesmerizing film about the passage of time, and the way our ideas about art evolve according to our life experiences. It’s a movie you’ll find yourself turning over in your mind for quite some time after the closing credits roll, marinating in the heady swirl of ideas and defiantly unresolved resolutions.” – WBUR’s The ARTery, 04/17/2015
“As Plummer explains, ‘He’s got a good heart. It’s just up his ass most of the time.’ I laughed a lot during Danny Collins and I cried a little bit, too. This is a hugely entertaining, mainstream crowd-pleaser about how we can all try to be our better selves, fail spectacularly, and then pick ourselves up and try again. Baby steps.” – Movie Mezzanine 04/08/2015
FURIOUS 7 * * 1 / 2
Starring Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Kurt Russell and Jason Statham. Screenplay by Chris Morgan. Directed by James Wan.
“A narcoleptic small-town neo-noir, this flagrantly derivative film wants desperately to be a Coen Brothers movie, but instead works mainly as a throwback to those off-brand knock-offs that cluttered video store shelves in the mid-’90s. Good news I guess, if you’re nostalgic for Keys to Tulsa, Clay Pigeons or Feeling Minnesota.” – Movie Mezzanine, 04/02/2015
SPLICED PERSONALITY 