50/50 Movie Review: Laughing Our Way Through Cancer

50/50 might be one of the smartest films about living with cancer that I’ve seen. That it’s a comedy makes it all the more interesting to me. It’s not a cancer comedy the way The Bucket List is, with two old geezers having adventures that the conditions of their bodies would never permit in real life. 50/50, directed by Jonathan Levine from a script by real-life cancer survivor Will Reiser, is about a man in his late-20s who is diagnosed with a rare form of spinal cancer and how he faces what could be his last days on earth.

The Help Movie Review: Subtlety Is not its Strong Point

The Help, written and directed by Tate Taylor and based on the popular best seller by Kathryn Stockett, is a do-gooder drama that thinks it’s treating important subject matter with great care, but actually does a horrible disservice to history, the Civil Rights Movement, and all the people who played a role (many of whom game their lives) in it. That said, it’s worth noting that there is a huge disparity between the kind of film Dreamworks has chosen to advertise with the trailers and the actual film that Taylor made.

The adverts would have us think The Help is a comedy with some dramatic elements, treating Jackson, Mississippi, cerca 1963 as a hotbed of sassy black women and comical white racists. I was genuinely surprised to find that it’s not until the final 30 minutes or so of this overlong 140 minute film that it devolves into cheap laughs. As a matter of fact, the bulk of the film is built on a foundation of real drama, mostly provided by the astounding performances of Octavia Spencer, Viola Davis, and Cicely Tyson.

Hereafter Movie Review: Eastwood the Director Plods Through the Afterlife

Matt Damon and Bryce Dallas Howard have a touching moment.

I think maybe I’m growing weary of Clint Eastwood the director. Critics, like me, have been singing his praises since Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby, but his recent output may cause me to reevaluate what I once thought were excellent movies (Unforgiven and A Perfect World remain untouchable, however). Like Woody Allen, he churns out movie after movie each year (sometimes two!) with gradually diminishing returns. Sure, there may be the occasional spark of something genuine or original, but mostly it feels like he’s on autopilot. His films are more often than not dripping with forced sentimentality, supported by musical scores (composed by Eastwood) that have become repetitive and seldom have any forward motion.

All of these criticisms are true of his latest film, Hereafter, which stars Matt Damon as George Lonegan, a psychic reader with the honest ability to make connections with the dead. He has given up his lucrative business in favor of a simpler life as a factory worker.