Opening This Week: The Beaver Select Cities - Quirky and even brave, one can admire the film for all that it attempts despite it not really working on the intimate, heartrending level it strives for. Take away the titular gimmick, and "The Beaver" would be a standard-issue family drama with nothing to set it apart from other oft-told tales of suburban ennui. Jumping the Broom Nationwide - Yet another soapy romantic comedy about a wedding weekend culture-clash wherein petty disagreements, catty behavior, self-doubt, and potentially life-changing revelations are the name of the game until all of the above tidily work themselves out just in time for the gooey, all's-right-with-the-world ending. Something Borrowed Nationwide - "Something Borrowed" doesn't always evade the traps of convention—yes, this is one of those films where the protagonist is supposed to be seen as less than the ideal of physical beauty, despite clearly being as pretty as the so-called "gorgeous" one—but it is the first film of its kind in a while with an ending that isn't such an obvious foregone conclusion. Stake Land OnDemand & Select Cities - A quiet sense of loss casts a grim shadow over the picture, lifting it above typical horror-flick theatrics. When "Stake Land" is creepy, it's very creepy, but it's the ghosts who pass through the frames—lost souls who want to carry on and fight to survive, and ultimately do not make it—that hauntingly linger even when they are no more. Thor Nationwide - "Thor" will not be going down anytime soon as one of the quintessentially great superhero efforts, like 2002's "Spider-Man," 2006's undervalued "Superman Returns," and 2008's "The Dark Knight," but it isn't a failure, either. Traversing a well-made, if middle-of-the-road, path, the film captivates as innocuous eye candy and occasional spectacle, but isn't so successful on a lasting dramatic level. |
© 2011 Dustin Putman |
Friday, May 6, 2011
Something for everyone at the movies this weekend.....
