Offbeat films are often offbeat simply to attract attention (and, at this time of the year, awards), and The Artist is certainly offbeat. Not only is it (mostly) silent, but it’s filmed in black and white. Those facts are bound to […]
Continue reading »Category: Recent Releases
A Dangerous Method (2011) ✰ ✰ ✰ ½
I didn’t do well in my college psychology class, so I don’t know the real history involving psychoanalysis and its early progenitors, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, et al. David Cronenberg has made A Dangerous Method, which depicts how Freud (Viggo […]
Continue reading »Young Adult (2011) ✰ ✰ ½
If cinema was like reality television, in the sense that everyone eventually would have the opportunity to star in their very own movie just being themselves, then Young Adult would, I think, be typical of what would be made. Jason Reitman’s […]
Continue reading »The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) ✰ ✰ ✰
Short review: I like the original better. Long review: David Fincher’s take on the first of Stieg Larsson’s bestselling books is intense and gruesome, which pertains to both violence and sex; particularly violent sex. Yet Fincher’s film is also picturesque […]
Continue reading »The Darkest Hour (2011) ✰ ✰ ✰
Yet another 2011 alien invasion film (there have been at least eight that feature aliens or depict their invasion of Earth), The Darkest Hour is a tidy little thriller set in Russia that intelligently predicts what a actual invasion might entail. […]
Continue reading »War Horse (2011) ✰ ✰ ✰ ½
It would be relatively easy to wring sentiment from a story about a horse and the young man who raises him, and War Horse certainly exploits that relationship about as fully as one would expect. Yet the film is so much […]
Continue reading »We Bought a Zoo (2011) ✰ ✰ ✰
While most of us would never have the gumption, the wherewithal or the ability to try to bring a failed zoo back to life, it’s a neat dream, and it’s very cool that somebody actually did it, and now there’s […]
Continue reading »New Year’s Eve (2011) ✰ ✰ ½
This holiday star-fest is a cute little cupcake of a movie, light and frilly-looking, with just enough icing to leave a sweet taste (or be sickening, if one doesn’t care for so much Hollywood icing). This is the second of […]
Continue reading »Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol ✰ ✰ ✰
Long-time Filmbobbery readers may recall that I have not been a big fan of the Mission: Impossible film franchise with Tom Cruise. I even wrote a diatribe about the first two films in my fourth issue, titled “Missions Ridiculous.” Well, that tide […]
Continue reading »Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011) ✰ ✰ ½
The second of Guy Ritchie’s “Sherlock Holmes” adventures is, on the whole, about the same as the first. Its story is darker than the first, pushing the brilliant but eccentric private detective (before there was such a thing) across Europe […]
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