Passion (D)
It’s ironic the title is Passion because absolutely no passion for filmmaking is seen on screen from Brian De Palma and he clearly has no interest in helping is actors based on the performances from Rachel McAdams and Noomi Rapace, neither of which have ever been worse. Some may enjoy watching this film for a laugh, but a thriller it is not.
Brian De Palma presents a shot-for-shot remake of Love Crime with Passion outside of his decision to abandon certain story-development and the tacking on of a fever dream ending to pretend the movie was more intriguing than it actually was.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower (A-)
I actually saw this one before heading to Toronto and have an interview with writer/director Stephen Chbosky on the horizon. If I was to do a top five from the fest The Perks of Being a Wallflower would certainly be in there, challenging for the top three.
To think a writer/director responsible for only one other directorial outing 17 years ago could create something as great as The Perks of Being a Wallflower is just one more example of how movies can pleasantly surprise us.
The Iceman (C)
Words such as “generic” were made to describe movies like The Iceman, featuring a character whose emotions don’t change no matter the situation. Child’s birthday? Meh. Chopping someone’s arm off. Meh.
Ariel Vroman’s The Iceman revels in the blood-thirsty nature of its lead character Richard Kuklinski, a man responsible for killing over 100 people and this movie decides it’s best to focus on those killings and not much else.
To the Wonder (C+)
I haven’t seen any glowing responses to Terrence Malick‘s latest as most people seem to be pretty close to my thoughts and then there are others that simply hated To the Wonder. I find it’s a hard film to hate especially since the filmmaking value is there. It may be a difficult watch and more of an artful/experimental piece, but for what it is it seems to serve its purpose, though I hope this is the last time Malick spends so much time dedicated to water and the sun.
Terrence Malick’s To the Wonder is a cinematic tone poem with very little dialogue, random images of water and a message that would seem to imply God has forsaken us.
The Master (A-)
I won’t be surprised if I rewatch The Master a couple months from now and decide it isn’t worthy of any kind of lofty praise and is rather just a good film with an impressive level of talent behind it. It’s one of two reviews I wrote at TIFF (The Place Beyond the Pines being the other), where I got to the end of the review and realized my opinion had changed while writing… In the case of The Master the opinion went up…
It’s not often I have a change of heart about a film while writing my review. Such a situation happened while i reviewed Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master, a film that requires your want to dig deeper in order for its subtle layers to begin peeling away.
The Bay (D+)
I saw some people actually liked this movie. What? It was odd too, they pointed out a lot of the same problems I had (such as all the Skype-ing) and yet still got a chill from it. Oh well, different strokes…
Barry Levinson brought us films that include Rain Man, Good Morning, Vietnam, The Natural and Wag the Dog and now he’s on a downward spiral and it all comes to this, a lackluster found footage thriller that brings nothing thrilling to the table.
