“Asteroid City” is a visual feat of a movie with little in the way of substance, in fact, this might be the most contrived Wes Anderson film I've watched. Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Liev Schreiber and Adrien Brody star in it, which adds heft but the photography is helliciously rendered in saturated pastels and so it's weird. This film brought a sense of emptiness in me. During its two ... more >
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The Wes Anderson-directed “ASTEROID CITY” makes landing | Cannes
Film is running in the competition slate
Scarlett Johansson, Jason Schwartzman and Tom Hanks
Directed by Wes Anderson
Her
What's love? (v. 2.0)
Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson
Directed by Spike Jonze
It’s the oldest story in the book: boy meets girl. Boy and girl fall in love. Boy and girl live happily ever after. The problem? The girl in this instance is a computer, and the boy is the lonely Theodore Twombley (Joaquin Phoenix). Theodore, who spends his days composing love letters for other people, is slogging through the aftermath of a failed marriage when he purchases an artificially ... more >
The Avengers
Action heroes team up. You will be saved.
Robert Downey, Jr. and Scarlett Johansson
“The Avengers” is the smorgasbord comic book movie we’ve been waiting for years to see. Many middling films were made (I’m looking at you “Thor,” “Hulk,” and “Captain America”) just in order to set up origins for this one. And it fell to director Joss Whedon to make this all come together. But he should have known better than to do so through nothing, but action sequences. It starts with ... more >
REVIEW – “The Avengers”
An Experience worth the capital letter
Robert Downey, Jr., Scarlett Johansson and Samuel Jackson
Directed by Joss Whedon
Comic book mavens rejoice, for Marvel Studios has concocted a heady and wonderful sensory brew in “The Avengers.” Weaving together the origin stories of Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, and Captain America, “The Avengers” packages a star-studded cast, one that could easily have imploded under its own weight, into a fleet-footed, yet cohesive, plotline. Nefarious forces from other worlds threaten Earth, ... more >
We Bought a Zoo
The right movie to cap an unremarkable year
Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson
Directed by Cameron Crowe
So, We Bought a Zoo is based on a true story about a single parent who brought his family back together again by buying a zoo--stop laughing. Did I mention it’s directed by Cameron Crowe (Almost Famous, Jerry Maguire), stars Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson, and features an impressive musical score by Sigur Rós frontman Jónsi Birgisson? But then again, that storyline…hm, keep it up, you’ll need ... more >
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Woody Allen on the rise
Scarlett Johansson, Rebecca Hall, Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz
Directed by Woody Allen
Woody Allen’s Vicky Christina Barcelona runs from promising to intriguing to agreeably incoherent to disagreeably incoherent to utter anarchy. A little frustrating as film, yes, but one might say it successfully mirrors the pathway of romance. It certainly mirrors the pathway of the volcanic marriage of artists Maria and Juan Antonio (Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem), a disturbed, bickering ... more >