“Jeremy Renner is, at heart, a weirdo character actor whose live-wire performance in The Hurt Locker resulted in Hollywood mistakenly shoving him into leading man parts for which he’s ill-equipped. Whether flinging arrows as the lamest Avenger or starring as The Bourne Lazenby, he feels strait-jacketed in straight roles.” – North Shore Movies, 10/15/2014
“Writer-director Alex Ross Perry’s Listen Up Philip is a rueful, remarkable film about how success can still feel like defeat. I first saw it at Sundance back in January and haven’t shut up about it since. It’s funny as hell, but funny in that way where the laughs catch in your throat. A literary cousin to Llewyn Davis, Philip finds the melancholy in misanthropy.” – Movie Mezzanine, 10/13/2014
THE JUDGE * 1 / 2
Starring Robert Downey Jr., Robert Duvall, Vera Farmiga, Vincent D’Onofrio and Billy Bob Thornton. Screenplay by Nick Schenk and Bill Dubuque. Directed by David Dobkin.
WHIPLASH * * 1 / 2
Starring Miles Teller, J.K. Simmons, Melissa Benoist and Paul Reiser. Written and directed by Damien Chazelle.
“Cage bottoms out big-time with this chintzy reboot of a Christian movie franchise that previously starred noted Stephen Hawking-debunker and evangelical pest Kirk Cameron. Left Behind has the flimsy sets and tinny synthesizer score (not to mention the character names) of a 1980’s porn flick. and Nic’s embarrassment comes through in his performance.” – North Shore Movies, 10/05/2014
GONE GIRL * * * 1 / 2
Starring Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Carrie Coon, Kim Dickens and Tyler Perry. Screenplay by Gillian Flynn. Directed by David Fincher.
“A hysterical treatise about how that insidious collection of tubes called the Internet has destroyed our family values and ruined everybody’s lives, this has got to be the crotchetiest, most alarmist movie ever directed by a 36-year-old man. Men, Women & Children would probably be the worst film released all year, had Jason Reitman not also made Labor Day.” – Movie Mezzanine, 10/02/2014
“But something’s slightly off about Ian’s upward trajectory. He’s suffering from bizarre, ever-expanding interstitial interludes–surreal gross-out hallucinations inspired by crappy eighties television programs and exercise videos. The spot-on parodies include Tough As Nails Tiger Team A and (my personal favorite) Officer Zygor, Alien Cop.” – North Shore Movies, 10/02/2014
“Cinematographer Mihai Malaimare Jr. shoots the city as a gorgeous ruin, favoring sparse wide shots with heavy negative space bearing down on these isolated characters. There’s a doomy grandiosity befitting the title, and when violence inevitably occurs it is something not to be cheered, but mourned.” – North Shore Movies, 09/19/2014
“The most beautiful irony is that Altas Shrugged’s previous two installments proved so financially calamitous, Aligaro and his co-producers financed this one with the help of a Kickstarter campaign. Hard not to wonder what Ayn Rand would have thought about her precious bootstrap self-sufficiency manifesto being funded by begging for handouts.” – North Shore Movies, 09/16/2014
SPLICED PERSONALITY 