Search form

Rick's Flicks Picks on AWN

Blogs

ANIMAL KINGDOM (2010) (***1/2)

This best of 2010 reminded of another one of the best films of 2010 -- WINTER'S BONE. Both films are crime dramas set in working class families. Teens are at the center of both tales, living in worlds of violence that they cannot escape from. They have to learn to cope and maneuver through it. There is no one they can trust, so they're on their own.

Joshua "J" Cody (James Frecheville) is 17 and his mother has an overdose. Now he has to go live with her family in Melbourne; the family she left behind for his sake. His grandmother Janine (Jacki Weaver, PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK) is the sweet matriarch of a family of criminals. J describes his uncle Andrew, aka Pope, (Ben Mendelsohn, THE NEW WORLD) as the one he is most scared of, and rightfully so. He has an intense, intimidating stare and a knack for getting people to do things they don't really want to do. Pope is the leader of a robbery gang with his best friend Barry "Baz" Brown (Joel Edgerton, THE SQUARE). When the levelheaded and kind Baz wants out, Pope becomes lost and begins to spiral out of control.

Blogs

THE CHASER (2010) (***1/2)

The plot is simple. A pimp hunts down a serial killer who has been murdering his girls. What first-time director Hong-jin Na creates out of this premise is an edge of your seat thriller that is always one step ahead of our expectations. It made be think about how painfully conventional most thrillers really are.

Joong-ho Eom (Yun-seok Kim, RUNNING WILD) is a former cop who has went into the more lucrative pimp game. However, he's still drowning in debt and his girls are disappearing on him, believing a client is kidnapping them and selling them as sex slaves. He gets a call from a client and sends out Mi-jin Kim (Yeong-hie Seo, BEDEVILLED), who is sick and must leave her young daughter Eun-ji (Yoo-jeong Kim) at home alone. Joong-ho starts looking into this client and discovers he was the last person to call for the missing girls. He starts to fear that he has sent out Mi-jin to meet the serial killer Young-min Jee (Jung-woo Ha, TIME).

Comedy Blogs

THE GREEN HORNET (2011) (***)

One of the reasons why recent superhero flicks have succeeded where BATMAN & ROBIN failed is because they played the material straight and avoided too many post-modern flashes. Now we get a new superhero adaptation that attempts to find the balance between post-modern and a straight superhero story. Diehard Green Hornet purists might find the film too juvenile, but the character seems the right one for this kind of treatment.

Blogs

THE GREEN HORNET (2011) (***)

One of the reasons why recent superhero flicks have succeeded where BATMAN & ROBIN failed is because they played the material straight and avoided too many post-modern flashes. Now we get a new superhero adaptation that attempts to find the balance between post-modern and a straight superhero story. Diehard Green Hornet purists might find the film too juvenile, but the character seems the right one for this kind of treatment.

Britt Reid (Seth Rogen, FUNNY PEOPLE) is a party boy, living off the millions of his father James (Tom Wilkinson, MICHAEL CLAYTON), the owner and editor-in-chief of The Daily Sentinel. Their relationship isn't warm; James has always been very hard on his son. But when James suddenly dies, Britt inherits the paper. He meets his father's mechanic Kato (Jay Chou, CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER), a brilliant inventor and martial arts master. He agrees with Britt that his father was a jerk, so they go out to steal the head off James' statue and in the process thwart a mugging. This spurs Britt to decide they need to become superheroes, but make everyone believe their criminals in order to keep the bad guys guessing.

Blogs

EASY A (2010) (***1/2)

This high school comedy was inspired by THE SCARLET LETTER. It's certainly not surprising to see a classic being adapted for modern teens. What is surprising is that it took this long for Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic to be given this kind of teen treatment. The best surprise is how funny and smartly it was done.

Olive (Emma Stone, SUPERBAD) tells an innocent lie, which gets her in a great deal of indecent trouble. She wants to avoid a weekend away with her best friend Rhiannon (Alyson Michalka, TV's PHIL OF THE FUTURE) and her crazy hippie parents, so she tells her that she has a date with a college guy. When Rhiannon asks her about the date on Monday, she ends up getting trapped into admitting that she lost her virginity to cover up her weekend in her room singing greeting card songs. As these things go, the news travels fast and Olive develops a new reputation quick.

Blogs

I AM LOVE (2010) (***1/2)

This tragic tale of an elite family doesn't blaze new dramatic territory that similar films like THE LEOPARD have done before. But the quiet direction of Luca Guadagnino and subtle performance of Tilda Swinton make many moments truly special. Unexpected moments take on the intensity of a Hitchcock thriller and when you think that sex scenes have become rote, this film makes them erotic again.

Emma (Swinton, MICHAEL CLAYTON) is the Russian bride of Tancredi Recchi (Pippo Delbono), the next in line to take over the Recchi family textile business. At his birthday party, patriarch Edoardo Recchi Sr. (Gabriele Ferzetti, L'AVVENTURA) reveals that he is stepping down and putting not only Tancredi in charge, but also his grandson Edoardo Jr. (Flavio Parenti). The ill, old man knows that his grandson has respect for tradition and that Tancredi plans to simply cash in and sell the company.

Blogs

Getting Buzzed - RFP’s 15 Most Anticipated Winter/Spring Films

Well the new year is here and it's time to start getting excited for what 2011 will have in store for us movie-wise. As always, we have to endure the winter dumping ground and the summer sequel parade for the serious fall films. This spring already has some intriguing films for us. Here's hoping that this is better than the last.

Honorable Mentions (Some are just curiosities at best)
THE GREEN HORNET (Jan. 14), BARNEY'S VERSION (Jan. 14), THE COMPANY MEN (Jan. 21), THE RITE (Jan. 28), THE MECHANIC (Jan. 28), SANCTUM (Feb. 4), FRANKIE & ALICE (Feb. 4), THE EAGLE (Feb. 11), GNOMEO AND JULIET (Feb. 11), I AM NUMBER FOUR (Feb. 18), OF GODS AND MEN (Feb. 25), APOLLO 18 (March 4), BATTLE: LOS ANGELES (March 11), MARS NEEDS MOMS (March 11), RED RIDING HOOD (March 11), LIMITLESS (March 18), THE LINCOLN LAWYER (March 18), HOP (Apr. 1), INSIDIOUS (Apr. 1) and ARTHUR (Apr. 8).

Blogs

Rick's Top 25 Films of 2010 (As It Stands on January 1, 2011)

In 2010, were docs real or just a street artist prank? Did catfish swim in fiction or was it honest and frank? Audiences friended the Facebook flick and Lisbeth Salander was one badass… I shouldn’t call her that. An Arab teen ruled the thugs and the Pat Tillman debacle got swept under the rug. Dream thieves blew our minds and a poor teen was stuck in a cold bind. A mother fought to save her son from jail and clones lived in a world that’s pale.

Sadly, 2010 was not a stellar year for films. Over the past few years, I’ve been awarding four stars at least 20 films. This year only 13 films received a four star rating. Many years I have to make tough choices on what stays on the top 25 and what falls off. This year it wasn’t too difficult. As every year there were a bunch of films that I wish I could have seen in the year. Some like LET ME IN, INSIDE JOB and CARLOS I really wish I could have seen. Here’s a list of some others.

Blogs

ANOTHER YEAR (2010) (***1/2)

The title of this film can either be positive or negative depending on the character you're seeing the film through. For the couple who hosts the get-togethers the film revolves around another year represents another year of joy and landmark events to add to their memories. For their single middle-aged friends another year is JUST another year.

Tom (Jim Broadbent, MOULIN ROUGE) and Gerri (Ruth Sheen, ALL OR NOTHING) have been happily married for decades. They tend a small community garden together and throw little get-togethers with their friends and family. Mary (Lesley Manville, SECRETS & LIES) is Gerri's friend from work; a desperately single woman who drinks to forget. Her life is a mess. Ken (Peter Wight, BABEL) is Tom's friend from his youth; a desperately single man who drinks to forget. His mess of a life makes Mary's life look stable. He's the kind of good hearted guy who could make a woman very happy, but can never get his foot in the door because he's fat, drunk and a slob.

Blogs

MOTHER (2010) (****)

Director Joon-ho Bong first came to my attention, as well as to most U.S. viewers, for his eco-statement monster movie THE HOST. In certain circles it was highly praised, I found it muddled and pointlessly depressing, especially when dealing with questionable parenting. Now he deals with parenting, both questionable and dedicated, in this film, a remarkable thriller that never fails to keep surprising us up until the end.

A mother (Hye-ja Kim, LATE AUTUMN), known as nothing more than that, is very protective of her mentally challenged 20-something son Do-joon (Bin Won, TAE GUK GI: BROTHERHOOD OF WAR). Early on he gets clipped by a car because he was standing in the street. Along with his bad influence friend Jin-tae (Ku Jin, A BITTERSWEET LIFE), they head out to seek revenge. This incident leads to Do-joon being arrested, interrogated and confessing to the murder of a teenage girl.

Blogs

TRUE GRIT (2010) (***1/2)

For a Coen Brothers film, this Western is pretty straight forward. A young girl’s father is murdered. She seeks revenge. Her determination is undaunted. And yet this is a Coen Brothers’ film. The siblings love of language and dark humor color this compelling character study.

Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld, TV’s SUMMER CAMP) was 14 when her father was gunned down by his worker Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN). She goes to settle her father’s affairs, which includes hiring a U.S. marshal to hunt down his killer. She wants to enlist Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges, THE BIG LEBOWSKI), because he is the most ruthless. But Texas Ranger LaBoeuf (Matt Damon, THE INFORMANT!) has been tracking Chaney for killing a Texas state senator. Neither of the two men is interested in taking a young girl out to hunt down Chaney, who has taken up with Lucky Ned Pepper (Barry Pepper, THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA) and his gang.

Comedy Blogs

THE ILLUSIONIST (2010) (***1/2)

This animated feature from Sylvain Chomet, the director of THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE, is an unsettling experience. To understand why I say this there is some background that must be known. It is based on an unfilmed script from famed comedian Jacques Tati animated in the French icon’s style. When I think of Tati, I think of the charming Mr. Hulot, a hapless Buster Keaton-like everyman. I think of sly humor in a light comedy. The sly humor is there, but there is nothing light about it.

Blogs

THE ILLUSIONIST (2010) (***1/2)

This animated feature from Sylvain Chomet, the director of THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE, is an unsettling experience. To understand why I say this there is some background that must be known. It is based on an unfilmed script from famed comedian Jacques Tati animated in the French icon’s style. When I think of Tati, I think of the charming Mr. Hulot, a hapless Buster Keaton-like everyman. I think of sly humor in a light comedy. The sly humor is there, but there is nothing light about it.

Known to us only as The Illusionist (Jean-Claude Donda, THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE), the main character is a vaudeville magician trying to continue performing his art well into the 1960s. Rock ‘n roll has replaced his kind of entertainment in the minds of the people. He gets a gig at a bar in a way off village where he meets the young maid Alice (Eilidh Rankin), who is captivated with his magic. He sees that the poor girl’s shoes are much worn, so he kindly buys her a new pair. When he leaves, she follows him back to Edinburgh. So what is this man supposed to do with this girl?

Blogs

EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP (2010) (****)

By Rick DeMott | Thursday, December 16, 2010 at 11:59am

The best way of looking at this documentary is to look at this credit — A Banksy film. So what does that imply? Street art for one. Provocative cultural commentary. A rebellious spirit. This film is all of those and possibly more. It is a work of art in and of itself.

The best way to start is to look at the story on the surface level. Thierry Guetta is a French transplant to L.A. where he made his money selling vintage clothes to hipsters. He was obsessed with his videocamera and recorded everything. Upon visiting France, he began recording his cousin, a street artist known as Space Invader, who pasted mosaics of SPACE INVADERS characters all over the city. Thierry formed a new obsession with street art and began making friends with the cutting edge artists in the field through his cousin. He began following Shepard Fairey, who is famous for the Andre the Giant/ Obey stencils that lined the streets of L.A. and then the iconic red, white and blue campaign image for Barack Obama. By following these artists, we get a great sense of the art form and how repetition and volume create importance in addition to the strategic placement of the art, which takes on meaning in context with its placement.

Blogs

TRON: LEGACY (2010) (**1/2)

By Rick DeMott | Wednesday, December 15, 2010 at 4:13pm

It has been nearly thirty years since the original TRON made waves with its then groundbreaking visual effects. Visual effects have caught up with the visionary ideas of the digital world of the original, making the sequel a visual treat. Unfortunately, the story is less compelling.

Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund, FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS) idolized his father Kevin (Jeff Bridges, THE BIG LEBOWSKI), a brilliant computer programming who dreamed of creating a perfect world inside the computer. He called this world The Grid and promised to show it to Sam one day, but then he disappeared. Sam has grown despising what ENCOM, the company his father ran. Each year he plays a prank on the company to get under their skin. Then his father's old partner Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner, TV's BABYLON 5) comes to him with news that he's received a page from his father's old office. When Sam goes to investigate, he stumbles across his father's work and inadvertently gets transported into The Grid.

Blogs

THE KING'S SPEECH (2010) (***1/2)

Albert was not born with a stammer, but developed one around four or five. He was born a prince. The former creates a great problem for the latter when public speaking is key to the job he was born to do. Making matters worse, he was prince during the boom of wireless radio and disturbing times with an older brother that had little interest in being king. He would become King George VI.

Blogs

THE KING'S SPEECH (2010) (***1/2)

Albert was not born with a stammer, but developed one around four or five. He was born a prince. The former creates a great problem for the latter when public speaking is key to the job he was born to do. Making matters worse, he was prince during the boom of wireless radio and disturbing times with an older brother that had little interest in being king. He would become King George VI.

Colin Firth plays Albert, or Bertie as his family knew him. Inside Bertie was very capable of being a great king, but the stutter made him sound like a fool. His father King George V (Michael Gambon, HARRY POTTER) lorded over him with an iron fist and had no time for his "problems." His brother Edward (Guy Pearce, MEMENTO) was a globetrotting party boy right up until the moment his father died. He was not capable of being a great king. He wanted what he wanted and gave up the crown to marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson (Eve Best, TV's NURSE BETTY). Now Bertie wasn't just a stammering prince, but a stammering king, the only king to ever take the throne with the previous king still alive and well. This kind of pressure didn't help his stutter.

Blogs

GOING THE DISTANCE (2010) (**1/2)

This is a romantic comedy in search of comedy. So many of its romantic and dramatic pieces work well, but they are at odds with the humor. An R-rated comedy doesn’t have to be a raunchy comedy. When WHEN HARRY MET SALLY… talked about orgasms it was funny because it was the characters sparing with each other. Here talk of dry humping seems solely based on the term dry humping making the crew giggle.

Erin (Drew Barrymore, WHIP IT) is summer interning at a newspaper in New York City. She is finishing up her graduate degree at Sanford after having taken off some time to follow a boy. In NYC, she meets Garrett (Justin Long, DRAG ME TO HELL), a low-level record company employee. They hit it off over the six weeks Erin has left on her internship and try to keep up a long distance relationship, but this is much more difficult than they imagined it to be.

Blogs

Blu-ray: GOING THE DISTANCE (2010)

Read my review of GOING THE DISTANCE.

It's a rom-com, so one knows going in that the visuals and sound aren't going to explode your home entertainment system. Warner Bros.' 1080p transfer is fairly true to its source. Digital problems are absent. The color palette is natural in the way a documentary looks, so nothing really pops. Some scenes actually look like they were filmed using a different camera from others. As for the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track, it’s weighted to the front speakers. The soundscape is moderately immersive giving some ambiance during bars scenes, etc. The dialogue and music are clear.

Blogs

FLIPPED (2010) (***1/2)

I've read a lot of reviews of Rob Reiner's latest family film calling it nostalgic sap. Have we become so cynical that we have forgotten what it was like to be a kid developing a first crush? Can we only look at a coming of age story through the prism of our adult disappointments? I'd like to hear what a junior high kid thinks of this film. I bet they'd say they could relate.

Bryce Loski (Callan McAuliffe, upcoming I AM NUMBER FOUR) moved across the street from Juli Baker (Madeline Carroll, SWING VOTE) when he was in the second grade. She developed an instant attraction to him, while he an instant revulsion. I mean she likes to smell him; she's kind of weird. But that's only his point of view. Juli has hers, as well, and the film gives us both with each character narrating their own take on events.

Blogs

THE FIGHTER (2010) (****)

Of all the sports to grace the screen, boxing has easily inspired the greatest films. Now director David O. Russell has added another to the ranks of RAGING BULL, ROCKY and MILLION DOLLAR BABY. But like all of those films, the reason this film is great is not because it’s a boxing movie. This is a story of family and how for some they can either help them raise their arms in victory or punch them below the belt.

Blogs

THE FIGHTER (2010) (****)

Of all the sports to grace the screen, boxing has easily inspired the greatest films. Now director David O. Russell has added another to the ranks of RAGING BULL, ROCKY and MILLION DOLLAR BABY. But like all of those films, the reason this film is great is not because it’s a boxing movie. This is a story of family and how for some they can either help them raise their arms in victory or punch them below the belt.

Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg, THE DEPARTED) has been a promising boxer for years, but always staying at the promising level. Some have started to believe he’s simply a stepping stone for other boxers to fight in order to move up the ranks. He learned everything he knows about boxing from his older brother Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale, THE MACHINIST), who at one time knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard. Now he’s an unpredictable crack addict. Micky’s career has always been a family affair. His mother Alice (Melissa Leo, FROZEN RIVER) is his manager, but Micky begins to wonder if they have his best interests in mind after they put him up against a boxer 20 pounds heavier.

Blogs

THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER (2010) (***)

In the most overtly allegorical of C.S. Lewis' NARNIA series, the heroes battle the demons inside rather than white witches or evil kings. While director Michael Apted never mentions any one religion, the Christian undertones of this installment are more apparent than any of the other films. Vanity, jealousy, greed and pride are the villains here.

Pages