Short Cut Movie Review: The Lone Ranger

A Short Cut Movie Review is normally less than 400 words, but in some cases may go slightly over. This is my attempt to keep writing about as many films as I see without getting bogged down with trying to find more to say. They are meant to be brief snapshots of my reaction to a movie without too much depth.

Not nearly as bad as I was expecting (not to be mistaken for an endorsement) was Gore Verbinski’s The Lone Ranger. I was expecting Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End levels of awfulness, but it rose to the middling heights of The Curse of the Black Pearl. It does most of what you’d expect from an update of a classic TV and radio show beloved by the Boomers. It throws in lots of big action set pieces, impossible stunts, a poop joke, and a lame attempt at making it seem less exploitative of American Indians, but as long as it’s got Johnny Depp running around in a ridiculous getup and makeup acting all Looney Toons, it’s sort of undermining itself.

Short Cut Review: Mirror Mirror

A Short Cut Movie Review is normally less than 400 words, but in some cases may go slightly over. This is my attempt to keep writing about as many films as I see without getting bogged down with trying to find more to say. They are meant to be brief snapshots of my reaction to a movie without too much depth.

Director Tarsem Singh's films are always visually splendid with imaginative production design and costumes. He brings the same creativity to the classic Snow White fairy tale, turning the tale, if not on its head, a little askew. Julia Roberts is the evil queen, a role she was perhaps destined to play at this point in her life. It pokes a little bit of fun at the beautiful starlet who has aged out of that role. Not that Roberts isn't still beautiful or a great movie star, but it's a well known truism in Hollywood that youth is valued over experience and actresses her age get left behind. There is more than a knowing wink at that in her character. Armie Hammer is the impossibly good-looking prince and relative newcomer Lily Collins is Snow White. The great look of the film and occasional good humor, especially the seven dwarfs who have a very good introduction, don't always help overcome the languid storytelling.

J. Edgar Movie Review

Earlier this year I wrote a review of Clint Eastwood’s Hereafter that complained of my weariness with his recent lazy filmmaking. I almost began this review of his latest film, J. Edgar, the same way until I went back and read that one. But the fact remains that his biopic of the man who was director of the old Bureau of Investigations and then first Director of the FBI for a total of 48 years is tired, boring and absurd. This is lazy storytelling at its worst.

J. Edgar Hoover always was and remains to this day something of an enigma. We know him as the paranoid director who supposedly investigated his enemies and people he believed to be subversives and radicals. He’s widely suspected of illegally wiretapping and of keeping secret files that were ultimately never recovered (at least in full). There is strong suspicion he was a deeply closeted homosexual and may have maintained a long-term relationship with his number two man Clyde Tolson. There’s even some silly speculation that he was a cross-dresser. But we don’t know much about the man and his motivations for his paranoia and his jealousy when it came to FBI agents who absorbed more of the spotlight than he could stand.

The Social Network Movie Review: How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

The story of the founding of the most popular and successful social networking site, Facebook, is the foundation for The Social Network, but it’s hardly the meat and potatoes of the story. It’s directed by David Fincher from a dazzling screenplay by Aaron Sorkin, who adapted it from Ben Mezrich’s non-fiction book The Accidental Billionaires.

Fincher got his start in feature films as a studio director-for-hire who always brought a unique vision to such films as Alien 3, Se7en and Fight Club. He strayed a little off the map by opting for more commercial fare with the recent Hollywood favorite The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Although The Social Network is a big commercial enterprise, Fincher gets himself back on track as an auteur. He demands that we take sides with a severely flawed hero – Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) who sold out his best friend and may have partially ripped off the idea from fellow Harvard classmates Divya Marendra (Max Minghella) and Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss (Armie Hammer).