Jun 17, 2011
(Rated R) At the start of the new year, 32-year old ‘singleton” Bridget Jones decides it is time to take control of her life and starts keeping a diary. Now, the provocative, erotic and hysterical book on her bedside table is the one she’s writing that encompasses men, exercise, sex and married friends. Based on the novel and loosely based on “Pride and Prejudice”, stars Renee Zellweger as Bridget, her childhood best friend is Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), who seems so wrong he could be right, and Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant), her scoundrel boss, who seems too good to be true. The movie allows Grant to show his bad boy rogue side memorable for his real life philandering with “Divine Brown”, in which he’s quite enticing yet leaves the audience wondering why Bridget would want such an unobtainable lover. Pal Mark Darcy comes off as somewhat cardboard, but either way, these men of her life is why she keeps a diary. Zellweger delivers a wonderful comic performance (perhaps some of that Jim Carrey romance rubbed off), but she’s not as well-received as the girl we loved in “Jerry Maguire”, despite making a convincing Brit! Hats off to her dialect coach. If all that was intended was slap-stick humor, the movie succeeds at entertaining but somehow its theme doesn’t transcend to all women. It’s no “Annie Hall.”
Jun 17, 2011
Charles Ryder (Matthew Goode) is a starving artist who happens upon the wealthy Sebastian Flyte (Ben Whishaw) a drunken, aristocrat who takes the liberty of vomiting in Charles’s room, during a weekend in Venice. Next thing we know Sebastian is cast under Charles’s spell at Oxford and befriends him. Taking Charles home to his blue blood mansion, Brideshead, we meet Sebastian’s sister, Julia (Hayley Atwell) and his Mother (Emma Thompson). And so the triangle begins. Sebastian loves Charles, Charles loves Julia, but Mother won’t allow her daughter to marry a man who’s not a Catholic. They’re estate screams money and fortune, while Charles has no money at all – only an appreciation for all that is art, love and decency. Unlike the typical British dramas of “Sense and Sensibility” this one has volumes of playful, sexual overtones between the “Our Father’s,” but drags in its story telling (apparently brevity is not wit.) It’s more a strenuous adaptation of the novel by Evelyn Waughe better left in book form. That said, enter Father Flyte, his mistress, and even “God” – playing into every turn of events – and soon we see that it’s inevitably impossible to escape the clutches of Brideshead, in book or movie form, without the constant longing to, well, revisit. Two and a half tiaras
Jun 17, 2011
This young Bangledeshi woman looks like the Indian version of J Lo, in a story where lovely, Nazneem (Tannishtha Chatterjee) is shipped off to marry a man in London and reside on Brick Lane, circa 1980, leaving behind her sister and her home. We never see the sister again, but they correspond through heart-breaking letters (think “The Color Purple”) as Nazneem struggles with being the beauty in a loveless marriage to the beast. While Nazneem never expresses any emotion through much of the film, she somehow lives vicariously through the sister’s words, and eventually becomes friends with Karim (Christopher Simpson) where all kinds of worldly explorations might be possible. But it’s her overweight and homely, Muslim husband (Satish Kaushik) who offers a smile and lives in his delusional world, providing some sincere belly laughs from the audience. For those who loved last year’s fabulous “Namesake” this would be the generic equivalent. Three tiaras
Jun 17, 2011
The title does more than tell the tale of a young boy who breaks into an architect (Jude Law’s) workplace and rob him. The young thief also changes things – in a way, breaking into Law’s life and in some ways, leaving things he didn’t take, when Law is suddenly forced to reevaluate his own life. His ten year relationship with Robin Wright Penn is strained mainly because of her twelve year old autistic daughter. After a second robbery, Law takes it upon himself to camp outside his office during nighttime hours in hopes of finding this criminal. But what he finds is a friendship with some colorful characters including Juliette Binoche, the mother of the very young boy who’s robbed him. Director Anthony Minghella who discovered Jude Law in “The Talented Mister Ripley” and then “Cold Mountain” has done it again, only this time he’s right on the money, delivering a film that touches on fidelity, infidelity, and the emotions that break and enter the heart in similar ways that the movie “Unfaithful’ got in over its head a few years ago. And Law’s performance is his best to date – genuine and not his usual cad-self, making him Oscar worthy. Four Tiaras
Jun 17, 2011
A daffy flick that feels a little bit like some Tim Burton movie all grown up. The story is about an orphan baby left on the doorstep of a Priest (Liam Neeson) who grows up (Cillian Murphy) with a desperate need to seek out his birth mother, he calls the “Phantom lady”. His adventures in Ireland lead him to an IRA lover and a variety of other quirky characters, including a magician (Stephen Rea of “Crying Game” fame) who tries to make him famous. Murphy is unrecognizable as a woman, with too nice a wardrobe on an orphan budget. Hard to believe he just came off of his recent thriller “Red Eye”, since this character could be the love child of Peter Frampton and Keith Partridge a.k.a. David Cassidy. While the story keeps us entertained and on our toes, with overly animated antics, Murphy’s character is empty – there’s no soul. Director Neil Jordan directs this movie also about boy/girl/transvestites but not with the depth and force of his brainstorm “The Crying Game.” Two and a half tiaras.
