Director Baz Luhrmann is one of the more polemic filmmakers working today. While many praise his modern take on the Bard with his Romeo Juliet (1996) and his radical musical Moulin Rouge (2001), others are equally adamant that he’s a stylistic hack who lets his elaborate visuals and seizure-inducing editing-style suffocate his innovative narratives. I […]
Chuck Koplinski
Posted inArts & Culture
Home Run rife with errors
It really comes as no surprise that faith-based dramas have found a devoted following. Films such as Facing the Giants, Fireproof and Courageous answer a need with their life-affirming messages as the product from Hollywood seldom supplies such themes. I have no problem with the intent of these movies or those who embrace them. I […]
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Iron Man 3 a clunky debut for Marvel’s second phase
Shane Black’s Iron Man 3 has the unenviable task of following Joss Whedon’s widely entertaining The Avengers as the next Marvel Studios movie out of the chute. Too bad that Iron Man 3 gets the company’s second phase off to a bad start. Illogical, scattered and underdeveloped, the film plays like a rush job, littered […]
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Boyle’s Trance rewards the patient
How much you enjoy Danny Boyle’s Trance depends entirely on how much you like to be manipulated while watching a movie. And while it might be distracting to other viewers, they may end up thanking you if you were to bring pencil, paper and a penlight in order to make notes and keep track of […]
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Pain’s outlandish story matches Bay’s garish style
Director Michael Bay throws audiences a curveball with his latest film Pain and Gain as he actually tells a story that revolves around human beings rather than alien robots. After conquering the international box office and rupturing an untold number of eardrums with his Transformers films, he brings his manic style to a stranger-than-fiction tale […]
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Pines a haunting look at the sins of two fathers
There’s no question that writer/director Derek Cianfrance’s The Place Beyond the Pines, is an ambitious film, the sort of work that intelligent filmgoers long to see. It tackles profound themes in an intelligent and artful way. He sets out to make a masterpiece with this Modern Greek tragedy and he nearly succeeds. This tale about […]
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Narrative déjà vu haunts Oblivion
There’s no question that Joseph Kosinski’s Oblivion is a well-crafted film, sporting a unique vision of a dystopian future that delivers on the promise the director showed with his first movie TRON: Legacy. The visuals he employs are imaginative and crisply rendered as is the flair with which he presents them. Too bad the same […]
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Violent Dead for true horror fans only
The poster for the reboot of Sam Raimi’s cult horror movie The Evil Dead (1981) promises that it is “the most terrifying film you will ever experience.” Of course, there’s more than a bit of hyperbole at play here but there’s no doubt that it’s likely the goriest film you’ll ever see as first-time director […]
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Host’s trite execution
Author Stephenie Meyer does the same to Jack Finney’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers with The Host as what she did to the vampire myth in Twilight – namely dumb it down with a sappy teen romance to the point where it’s nearly impossible to take any of it seriously. Which is frustrating because beneath […]
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Breakers an unexpectedly sobering look at today’s youth
The first surprise of the 2013 film year, Harmony Korine’s 2012 Spring Breakers is a bold look at today’s younger generation, portraying them as a group who has no firm connection with reality, content to exist in a hedonistic lifestyle in which all of their needs are met without taking any responsibility for any of […]
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The Call not worth taking
If there’s one thing I realized while watching Brad Anderson’s The Call, it’s that a documentary on 911 call centers and the people who work there would probably make for a fascinating film. A look at the triumphs and tragedies they experience, the stress they deal with and how the system works would probably help […]
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Change is good in The Croods
While Kirk DeMicco and Chris Sanders’ The Croods shows you can teach an old caveman new tricks, it also drives home the point that some things never change, namely that teenagers will rebel and that fathers have had a hard time letting go of their little girls for time immemorial. Clever and at times a […]
