Movies : December 2004

30 December 2004

Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events

Violet (Emily Browning), Klaus (Liam Aiken), and Sunny (Kara Hoffman and Shelby Hoffman) are the privileged children of the Beaudelaires, but their parents die in a fire of uncertain origin which engulfs their mansion. Through the well-meaning but weakly researched efforts of their Tatra-driving banker, they are delivered into the hands of Count Olaf (Jim Carrey). An actor by trade, Olaf sets the trio to work in chores which make little dent in the dilapidated state of the house and then leaves them locked inside an Imperial parked across a set of railroad tracks. Inventive Violet, studious Klaus, and Sunny of the powerful jaw manage to thwart Olaf’s plan to secure the inheritance, but even as they are transferred from one well-meaning but only weakly-related relative to another (including Meryl Streep as a widow frazzled by constant worries of calamities, their probability increased by her house’s perch on a cliff) Olaf in disguise continues his plotting. Unescapably episodic, reasonably diverting.

107 minutes.

17 December 2004

Kinsey

Liam Neeson throws himself into the role of Alfred Kinsey, a researcher of insects, whose interest in sexual matters led to numerous interviews and the publication of a number of controversial books post-war. Laura Linney plays his wife.

119 minutes.

15 December 2004

Sideways

Eighth-grade English teacher Miles (Paul Giamatti) hates his job, isn’t having much luck getting a publisher interested in his first novel, and still hasn’t gotten over his divorce. He lives on the second floor of an apartment building in San Diego and drives a red Saab convertible with faded paint. Improbably, he’s still pals with an actor of some reknown (they met in college) and the two have planned a trip from San Diego to the wine country in northern California as a lead-in to the actor’s wedding to the well-off daughter of an Armenian investor in commercial real estate. Miles figures on tasting a lot of wine, playing a few rounds of golf, and generally relaxing, but Jack (Thomas Haden Church) has a different agenda. Most of which involves sex, for himself definitely, for Miles if circumstances permit. Waitress and student of wine Maya (Virginia Madsen), nursing her own marital woe, gives Miles a chance while bartending motorcyclist single mother Stephanie (Sandra Oh) is only too ready to do the wild thing with Jack. An amiably paced, reliably amusing look at hurt and suffering and wine argot.

128 minutes.

05 December 2004

Closer

Sleep-inducing prattle about love from two emotionally immature Londoners and the American-born girlfriends they flip-flop between. Stunningly vulgar in words even if completely decorous visually (that is to say, there is no significant nudity). Doesn’t it bother professional photographer Anna (Julia Roberts) that her Hasselblad is attached to the tripod crookedly? Doesn’t it bother obituary writer Dan (Jude Law) that his Sony VAIO notebook has a curiously Aqua-fied interface? Still, Alice (Natalie Portman) wears her wigs well.

102 minutes.

Entries subject to editing at any time. Last edited on: 03-Feb-2005