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Reviews: July 2009 Archives
Standing Witness
By Matt Zoller Seitz on 07/30/2009
In the nearly two decades that I've been writing film reviews, I can't recall another week that saw the release of three movies that are guaranteed to wind up on my year-end Ten Best list. The movies are vampire love story "Thirst" and the documentaries "The Cove," about an aquatic conservationist's attempts to stop the slaughter of dolphins, and "Severe Clear," an autobiographical account of one Marine's experiences in Iraq. Beyond their dramatic merits, all three demonstrate a front-and-center mastery of technique. They use image and sound not just for the usual, so-called "classical" purposes (to define the characters and... MORE »
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War of the Words
By Matt Zoller Seitz on 07/22/2009
Filed under: ReviewsFor weeks now, I've heard fellow critics recommending Armando Iannucci's "In the Loop," a film about a verbal blunder that leads to an international crisis, as a pinnacle of screwball satire, a treasure trove of absurd situations and quotable lines, a "Dr. Strangelove" for the new millennium. I understand the fuss: the state of movie comedy is so generally dismal that when one demonstrates any wit at all, we tend to react like desert travelers who've stumbled upon an oasis. But while I agree that "In the Loop" is a breezy, amusing, committed movie -- writer-director Iannucci was responsible for... MORE »
Darkness Rising
By Matt Zoller Seitz on 07/15/2009
Filed under: ReviewsFrom Bambi's mother's death to the destruction of Alderaan, every modern generation is cursed and blessed with its very own big-screen traumas. "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," the sixth film in the series based on J.K. Rowling's fantasy novels, contains a doozy; that millions of readers know it's coming won't dim its power in the least. Screenwriter Steve Kloves, director David Yates and the familiar, still-sturdy cast play the grim moment and its aftermath for incredulous shock rather than raw sentiment, knowing viewers will supply the latter in spades. As devotees know, this entry finds Hogwarts in a funk,... MORE »
Gay Panic
By Matt Zoller Seitz on 07/09/2009
Filed under: ReviewsSacha Baron Cohen's improvisational prank film "Brüno" is a conceptual mess that's satisfying as a lowball, turn-your-brain-off snot comedy, but deeply problematic as social commentary. It's this last aspect, unfortunately, that made 2006's "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" (and the character's original TV incarnation) an object of debate. Did Borat's interactions with prototypical dumb-ass Americans, and his stoking of anti-Semitic tendencies, critique the Arab world's cultural prejudice and expose the country's latent prejudice and paranoia, or merely invite smug liberal laughter and an unearned sense of cultural superiority? Was Borat a Rorschach test,... MORE »
New Wave and Old Guard
By Matt Zoller Seitz on 07/01/2009
Filed under: Reviews"The only thing important is where somebody's going." That bit of existential wisdom comes from none other than John Dillinger (Johnny Depp), the soft-spoken, bank-jacking antihero of "Public Enemies," Michael Mann's latest epic about unhappy tough guys doing what they do best. It's offered by way of flirtation, as part of Dillinger's out-of-nowhere and all-out attempt to impress a gorgeous hat-check girl named Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard) -- a pitch of woo so intense, and so divorced from what Billie considers realistic feeling, that it both unsettles and amuses her. "I'm catching up, meeting someone like you," he tells her.... MORE »
