VENUS IN FUR * * * 1 / 2
Starring Emmanuelle Seigner and Mathieu Amalric. Screenplay by Roman Polanski and David Ives. Directed by Roman Polanski.
Author Archives: Sean Burns
SNOWPIERCER
SNOWPIERCER * * * *
Starring Chris Evans, Song Kang-ho, Tilda Swinton, John Hurt and Ed Harris. Screenplay by Bong Joon-ho and Kelly Masterson. Directed by Bong Joon-ho.
THEY CAME TOGETHER
THEY CAME TOGETHER * 1 / 2
Starring Paul Rudd, Amy Poehler, Cobie Smulders, Ellie Kemper and Bill Hader. Screenplay by Michael Showalter and David Wain. Directed by David Wain.
JERSEY BOYS
JERSEY BOYS * *
Starring John Lloyd Young, Vincent Piazza, Erich Bergen, Michael Lomenda and Christopher Walken. Screenplay by Marshall Brickman and Nick Elice. Directed by Clint Eastwood.
THE MONUMENTS MEN
“Despite running more than two hours, the film feels like it’s missing at least 40 minutes, with years passed over by Clooney’s stopgap afterthought of a narration. The only real connective tissue is Alexandre Desplat’s rousing retro score, which like all great World War II movie music contains a fair amount of whistling.” – The Improper Bostonian, 02/19/2014
THE REEL WINNERS
“Not to say that Will Ferrell and company were ubiquitous this past December, but when Emerson College announced it was renaming one of its schools the Ron Burgundy School of Communication, the entire cast followed me into the bathroom of a Tremont Street bar and tried to sell me a Dodge Durango.” – The Improper Bostonian, 02/19/2014
LABOR DAY
“A spectacularly awful film. Breathtaking to behold as it barrels from one terrible artistic decision to another, Labor Day is so histrionically abysmal that it makes you realize how lazy and complacent most other movies are in their banal mediocrity. The atrociousness is thrilling. As I left the theater, I felt alive again.” – The Improper Bostonian, 02/05/2014
THE INVISIBLE WOMAN
“Since little in the movie is explained aloud and the performances so restrained, The Invisible Woman must rely on compositions and blocking to express what the characters cannot. Far more attentive to visual storytelling than most actors who step behind the camera, Fiennes conveys shifting dynamics through positions within the frame.” – The Improper Bostonian, 01/22/2014
WHITEY: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA V. JAMES J. BULGER
“These people are looking for accountability, which is all but impossible to find in this quagmire of corruption. Whitey sometimes feels a bit jumbled, as the two-hour-and-ten-minute running time probably isn’t enough to adequately address the full madness of this tragedy. But the film asks the right questions, and it seethes with a righteous furor.” – The Boston Herald, 01/19/2014
AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY
“Awards have a way of ruining everything, and thus a severely truncated, flattened and defanged August: Osage County is now being presented to movie audiences as a collection of Academy-friendly, For Your Consideration meltdown clips. Sigh, what I wouldn’t give to see a bare-bones Friedkin adaptation.” – The Improper Bostonian, 01/08/2014
SPLICED PERSONALITY 