Reviews

I like big movies. I always have. Not being a professional film critic, I don’t feel obligated to prioritize small-scale, independent projects over studio-helmed blockbusters. I certainly have no intrinsic problem with low-key indie films – one of my favorite movies of 2008 was Rachel Getting Married, which is about as lo-fi and low-budget as you can get – but in general, my boyish, exuberant sensibilities tend to be partial to grand and even grandiose filmmaking. Cinema as a medium can show us truly remarkable things, and I love movies that tell sweeping stories on an epic scale, movies with an unapologetic sense of adventure and a bold imagination.

Zack Snyder’s Watchmen is, if nothing else, a big movie. With a $130 million budget, an IMAX release, an immensely popular novel that has inspired a rabid fan base, and a storyline of apocalyptic proportions (not to mention a runtime of two and a half hours), Watchmen demands to be recognized as an epic. In this, I suppose it succeeds – after all, making an epic is really all about effort, and no one is going to accuse Snyder of not trying hard enough. Read More

There’s a great moment in “The West Wing” when Josh is preparing to meet some brainy NASA scientist who wants to take him stargazing and show him how majestic the night sky is so she can secure White House funding for a mission to Mars, or something like that. Normally it’s not something Josh would be caught dead doing, but the scientist is a chick (played by Christina Chang), and she isn’t ugly. Josh’s shrewd secretary, Donna, calls him on it. “Would you be going if she weren’t attractive?” she asks. He thinks about it, then replies, with spectacular honesty: “We’ll never know.”

That’s basically how I feel about The Duchess. Would I have enjoyed this straightforward British period piece as much as I did if it didn’t star Keira Knightley, whom I firmly believe to be not only the most beautiful woman in the world but also the finest actress of her generation? We’ll never know. But as it is, golly I sure did like it. Read More

Back in March when I learned that the seventh Harry Potter book would be split into two movies, I immediately told my roommate Nate the good news. He quipped that I was excited only because it would “give me reason to live for that much longer” (rather than one movie bowing in December 2010, the new schedule called for the first movie to be released late in 2010, with the conclusion following in summer of 2011). Nate was being funny, but he wasn’t entirely wrong – I’ve often wondered if I’ll be subject to Post-Potter depression following the franchise’s cinematic finale (I certainly did my share of wailing after finishing the final book).

Last week, however, I determined that I need not worry. Not that I’m implying that the filmic culmination of the landmark fantasy series of my generation is insignificant; on the contrary, I’m confident I’ll be downright inconsolable watching Harry’s final duel with Voldemort at the Boston Common three years from now. But there will be other movies, other books, other franchises, other incarnations of populist entertainment with their own brand of magic. And last weekend I savored a delectable dose of such magic, a testament to the enduring power of the movies. I saw Wall-E. Read More