Damsels in Distress
Filibuster: The Movie Review written by Robert Patrick In the dewy, helium-filled mind of director Whit Stillman there has always been an unmistakable whimsy. Dialogue is puffed from the mouths of precocious youths; literary artifacts and seemingly inane cultural happenings are tenderized by the lexicon of overly ambitious collegiate students; and twenty-somethings are always on the precipice of artifice or revelation. Stillman lives...
Goon
Blades of Gory Starring: Sean William Scott, Liev Schreiber The beloved jack-o-lantern smile of the habitually goofy, snarky tongued Sean William Scott is nowhere to be found in Goon, the Sam-Peckinpah-on-skates hockey flick directed by Michael Dowse. Here, in the brutal world of minor league hockey, there are no ripcords or safety belts. The dusty landscape of westerns, where tumbleweeds amble by before a gunfight, are replaced with...
Delicacy
Love, Loss and a Swedish Suitor Starring: Audrey Tautou, Francois Damiens Review written by Robert Patrick The doe-eyed, stencil-lipped Audrey Tautou is often cast for her boppy, carbonated persona. Gaining fame for her portrayal as a lovelorn Parisian in Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Amelie, Tautou’s waifish frame has been coddled by the hearts of filmgoers for years. Sadly, in the wrong hands, Tautou is like key codes to a...
21 Jump Street
Spoiler Alert: It’s Good Review written by Robert Patrick Starring: Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum 21 Jump Street’s wonky, bombastic action premise is ramped up with crude jokes and staccato delivery. These aforementioned comedy tropes bring to mind the barbed brains of directors such as Todd Phillips and Adam McKay. Strangely, 21 Jump Street is directed by the duo held responsible for Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, the...
Chronicle
Fantastic Bore Starring: Dane DeHaan, Alex Russell Watch as several handheld cameras shake, fall, get knocked into walls. Chronicle’s cinematographer wasn’t a person but a wind turbine. Fans of tripping will love director Josh Tranks’ bombastic, sophomoric take on the superhero genre. If you strapped a camcorder to a soccer ball, and requested that David Beckham kick it for an hour and a half, you would get Chronicle – in short,...
Young Adult
R.L. Stine, Is This What It’s Like? Starring: Charlize Theron, Patton Oswalt Review written by Robert Patrick Counterculture queen Diablo Cody cuts her teeth on dialogue that is rife with alliteration, hipster-like musings, and fanged insults. Many would think her writing is a modern, barbed version of Howard Hawks’ spitfire snark. The reality is that Cody’s banter is young, angst driven, and spattered with acid...
Happy, Happy
Neighborhood Watch Starring: Agnes Kittelsen, Joachim Rafaelsen Review written by Robert Patrick Anne Sewitsky’s film, “Happy, Happy”, sounds like a syrupy romantic comedy with the trappings of spring-loaded, canned, jack-in-the-box guffaws. Thankfully it doesn’t have the noxious, cap gun humor that one would expect from a fuddy romantic dramedy. If you’ve seen the posters for this film, the marketing...
My Afternoons with Margueritte
Best Costume Design of All-Time Starring: Gérard Depardieu, Gisèle Casadesus Review written by Robert Patrick Colleen Atwood couldn’t whirl up a better outfit than the not-so-foppish digs that Gérard Depardieu is sporting in director Jean Becker’s “My Afternoons with Margueritte”. As seen in the screencap above, Depardieu looks like he kicked in the closet of Bob the Builder and ransacked the cartoon...
The Names of Love
Existentialism through Convolution Starring: Sara Forestier, Jacques Gamblin Review by Robert Patrick “The Names of Love” is what happens with kinetic imagery plays kick the can with dull dialogue. The first half is like a live wire of protein laced thoughts, energized and manipulated to auteur like form, the second half is as boring as listening to talk show radio with the volume down. Michele Leclerc’s lukewarm...
Our Idiot Brother
Likable Protagonist’s Shoes Filled by Winsome Rudd Starring: Paul Rudd, Zooey Deschanel Review by Robert Patrick “Our Idiot Brother” siphons the basic story structures of “What About Bob?” and “You, Me and Dupree” and inoculates them with Judd Apatow-like serums. The wholly likable, dog-eyed Paul Rudd is so sugary that when he smiles the enamel on his teeth could be made of saccharine....
