Reviews

Nine

Posted: December 25, 2009 at 12:01 am   /   Featured, Local, Movie Reviews

Nine is Rob Marshall’s return to musicals and the result is a bit unexpected but full of quality performances and entertaining musical numbers that entertain nearly from start to finish. The film picks up ten days prior to the start date of Guido Contini’s latest and ninth film and the stars, the costumes, the sets […]

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Avatar – Movie Review

Posted: December 18, 2009 at 9:49 pm   /   Local, Tom O'Keefe Movie Reviews

Twelve years after Titanic, James Cameron returns with the eagerly anticipated Avatar.  Set in the year 2154, a Haliburton-esque company named SECFOR is mining the planet of Pandora for a rock-like natural resource that is extraordinarily valuable on Earth.  However, they have run into problems with the Na’vi, an indigenous people inhabiting the world.  They […]

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Did You Hear About The Morgans? – Movie Review

Posted: December 18, 2009 at 9:24 pm   /   Local, Tom O'Keefe Movie Reviews

For film critics, December is a busy month.  It’s a mad scramble and a blur of movies as studios pummel us with films in time to qualify for Oscar consideration, Golden Globes, various other awards and critics’ year-end lists.  Invariably there is a film that slips through the cracks.  Did You Hear About the Morgans? […]

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Me and Orson Welles – Movie Review

Posted: December 18, 2009 at 9:21 pm   /   Local, Tom O'Keefe Movie Reviews

The year is 1937 and a 22-year old Orson Welles (Christian McKay) is in the process of staging what will become his legendary production of Julius Caesar.  His version of the Shakespeare classic was mercilessly pared down, clocking in at a scant 100 minutes (with no intermission).  Characters were omitted.  Dialog was moved around within […]

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Me and Orson Welles

Posted: December 18, 2009 at 1:44 pm   /   Local, Movie Reviews

There was a time when Richard Linklater was one of the most promising directors coming up. His indie hit Slacker is cited by many such as Kevin Smith and Jason Reitman, as inspiration to going into film. His career has bounced back and forth since then. To give you an idea of the difference in […]

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Did You Hear About The Morgans?

Posted: December 18, 2009 at 12:32 am   /   Local, Movie Reviews

It is hard to believe that Hugh Grant hasn’t had a film out since 2007’s Music and Lyrics, and that the quintessential British romance heart throb had not yet starred in a romantic comedy with Sarah Jessica Parker. On paper the pairing seems great, but in reality how does it turn out? Unfortunately, their stars […]

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Avatar

Posted: December 18, 2009 at 12:01 am   /   Featured, Local, Movie Reviews

James Cameron’s Avatar is finally here and not only does it deliver the visuals effects we were promised, which are quite possibly the best ever put on film, but the story is engaging and entertaining, if familiar, with a third act that must be seen to believe. In Avatar, James Cameron has literally created an […]

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Invictus – Movie Review

Posted: December 12, 2009 at 10:17 pm   /   Local, Tom O'Keefe Movie Reviews

The year is 1994 and  Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) has just been elected the first Black president of South Africa, after having spent 27 years in prison for his anti- apartheid activism. It’s a tumultuous period for the country. For the first time in the nation’s history, the White ruling class (i.e. Afrikaners) is out of […]

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Nine – Movie Review

Posted: December 12, 2009 at 9:02 pm   /   Local, Tom O'Keefe Movie Reviews

Like 1986’s Little Shop of Horrors and Hairspray, Nine is a movie based on a musical that was based on a movie.  Inspired by Federico Fellini’s semi-autobiographical 8 ½, the film follows Italian film director Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis).  Guido is a legendary director whose last two films were flops.  Production of his eagerly anticipated […]

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Disney’s The Princess and the Frog – Movie Review

Posted: December 11, 2009 at 10:04 pm   /   Local, Tom O'Keefe Movie Reviews

When Pixar wiz kid John Lasseter took over as Walt Disney Studios CEO, he made an interesting announcement: he wanted Disney to get back into traditionally animated films.  It was interesting in so much as conventional industry wisdom was that kids today no longer wanted hand drawn cartoons, preferring instead the computer animation of movies […]

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