Side Effects Movie Review

Like most avid filmgoers, I too hope Steven Soderbergh isn’t being genuine when he claims Side Effects is his last film before retiring. He is one of the few directors currently working in Hollywood who can elevate a standard genre film above its perceived limitations. Even when he’s off his game, his films are usually very good. Films like Magic Mike and Haywire didn’t exactly set my world on fire, but they would have been utterly forgettable trash in the hands of a lesser artist. Side Effects similarly didn’t have me begging for more, but as a crime thriller in the mode of a lone wolf investigator trying to clear his name I can think of a few worse examples and hardly any better.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Movie Review

David Fincher’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, adapted from Stieg Larsson’s book by screenwriter Steven Zaillian, is the second such adaptation of the novel, the first being a Swedish production from two years ago. It represents the growing trend in Hollywood of taking popular and well-crafted films from overseas and reshaping them for American audiences. Fincher’s version, which should really be considered an alternative adaptation of the book more than a remake, is an expertly made, great looking, moody and atmospheric yet totally conventional thriller. Which is sort of like having the New York Philharmonic perform a composition by a middle-schooler with mediocre musical ability. The conductor is brilliant and his orchestra top-notch, but the music itself insists that we ask why such talents were wasted in pursuit of something so pedestrian.

A Nightmare on Elm Street Movie Review: A Reboot Following in the Grand Tradition of Other Banal Reboots

6 June 2012 - Minor edits for clarity and typos.

The recent remake of the horror classic A Nightmare on Elm Street relies on the rather dubious – no, absurd – premise that fifteen teenagers would all have absolutely no memory of having gone to a nursery school at age four or five. I haven’t got a lot of distinct memories from my nursery school days, but I know where it was and I know I went.

Once as a teenager I met one of my old classmates and we vaguely recognized each other in spite of the physical changes that accompany the transition from age 4 to 16. Five of the characters in the film go to high school together, believing that they met each other in middle school. None of them remembers anything from their early childhoods. This serves one purpose, only useful to the plot’s feeble attempt at mystery and suspense: to create confusion among the kids and allow for drawn out sequences of discovery and investigation.

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).