Movies : February 2005
10 February 2005
RayFor that matter, what is a movie in second run and already released on DVD doing in a first-run theater? I am not the target market for a biography of a piano player (Ray Charles, played by Jamie Foxx) but I enjoyed the year-by-year production design.
152 minutes.
09 February 2005
Ocean’s TwelveWhat is this still doing in first-run theaters? I may not know my artistic movements, but if this nonsense isn’t Dada, what is? At least Don Cheadle’s character is written to be smart enough to notice that their big heists are moneylosing productions. More power to all involved for finding a way to play poker in Italy, or whatever the real reason was for this sequel.
About 130 minutes.
08 February 2005
Finding Neverland
A sentimental look at the creation of the
Peter Pan
story with playwright J. M. Barrie (Johnny Depp) disappointing theater manager Charles Frohman (Dustin Hoffman) with a flop and then, one day in the park with his huge dog, meeting Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (Kate Winslet) and her four boys. Barrie’s interest in Sylvia as his play-acting with the boys rejuvenates his imagination is the talk of London, frustrating his wife (Radha Mitchell) and inflaming the mother (Julie Christie). It’s one of those Kate Winslet movies where she remains clothed, but even so, a nicely understated romance.
101 minutes.
07 February 2005
Million Dollar Baby
All the ingredients are there… crusty, barrel-chested old man Frankie (Clint Eastwood) whose ability to train boxers is unquestioned but who leaves their championship ambitions frustrated, the one-eyed old man Eddie who is partial to hats (Morgan Freeman) yet is willing to live on a cot in the back room of the gym Frankie owns because it’s got HBO, and Missouri-born escapee from a trailer park Maggie (Hilary Swank) who decides at 31 that she’s gotta be a boxer and fixes on Frankie to make it happen. The story elements are reliable what with the plucky survivor of single-mother upbringing overcoming an old trainer’s refusal to train a
girl
and getting on the road to achieving her goals. The cinematography is moody and full of shadows (except for the parts in sunshine, of course). It’s a movie about a woman boxing, but the age and ethnicity make it
completely different
from
Girlfight,
okay? A few linguistic quibbles and some medical details aside, no major missteps. It’s one of those
ooh, big issues
movies which deals with them on about the superficial level that Frankie argues theology with his priest.
133 minutes.
05 February 2005
In Good CompanyDan Foreman (Dennis Quaid) is fairly comfortable in middle age as the head of marketing at Sports America magazine. But his life gets roiled by a confluence of turning points: a giant conglomerate has purchased the magazine’s publisher and is installing a 26-year old whippersnapper (Topher Grace) above him, his older daughter Alex (Scarlett Johansson) is thinking of transferring between colleges and switching majors, and someone in the house is using pregnancy tests. The anxiety is a bit elevated and remote to be compelling, and the running time seems too long for the simple points made, and Alex’s use of foundation and glossy lipcolor on a tennis date with father is bewildering, but the actors including Selma Blair and Marg Helgenberger are solid and manage to carry it off.
110 minutes.
04 February 2005
William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of VeniceIn sixteenth-century Venice, money-lender Shylock (Al Pacino) resents that the law denies him any other profession, yet when merchant Antonio (Jeremy Irons) sends his dearest associate Bassanio (Joseph Fiennes) to see if his credit will raise enough money for Bassanio to gain entrance to Belmont where the enormously wealthy Portia (Lynn Collins) receives suitors subject to a lottery devised by her father, Shylock is willing to neglect the spitting and the insults and asks only that the bond be a pound of Antonio’s flesh. Antonio, confident that his ships will return soon, readily agrees. Shylock’s assistant and daughter desert him, however, and Antonio’s ships returning from England and Tripoli have wrecked, and he is determined to complete the forfeiture. Matters are looking grim for Antonio as court convenes in front of the Duke and other worthies and no aspect of Venetian law can be found to prevent Shylock from extracting the nominated pound. When there enters a young judge with a tricky legal mind… that Portia, she’s hot. But Fiennes and Irons are cool presences in a production that emphasizes the tragic, giving Pacino all the opportunity he needs to dominate the film, even while it honors the three couples whose storyline survives the judgment against Shylock.
130 minutes.
Entries subject to editing at any time. Last edited on: 11-Feb-2005