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Hollywood Elsewhere - Movie news and opinions by Jeffrey Wells

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–Jeffrey Wells, HE, January ’09

“If you’re in a movie that doesn’t work, game over and adios muchachos — no amount of star-charisma can save it.”
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1 Comment
David Poland has written about

David Poland has written about Martin Scorsese’s tribute to the spirit that propelled Howard Hughes: “Better than any of the other movies nominated, The Aviator offers a look at us…at the power of outrageous daring…not just of one man, but of a culture that shouts our aspirations across the globe.” To which I must reply, “Better than any of the other movies nominated, The Aviator offers a look at our willingness to swallow rankly phony CG images that violate any sense of organic, first-hand reality…that promote the negligible effect of CG sequences that blatantly announcing themselves as such…all to celebrate not just a single willful man, but a culture that shouts our aspirations across the globe.”

February 10, 2005 1:49 pmby Jeffrey Wells
No Comments
The obiter dicta (i.e., words

The obiter dicta (i.e., words in passing) in Brian Lowry’s recently posted Variety review of Constantine (Warner Bros., 2.18) sounds somewhat predictable: “Pic does win a few points for style if not substance.” The opening graph, though, has a strong alliterative punch: “Keanu Reeves’ latest man-in-black fantasy is slightly better than The Matrix sequels, which is tantamount to damnation with faint praise. Casting its star as a chain-smoking exorcist — someone who’s literally been to hell and back — this adaptation of the graphic novel “Hellblazer” blazes few new trails and bogs down in a confusing narrative muddle. Atmospheric and noirish in the manner of a poor man’s Blade Runner, pic possesses powerful imagery but lacks feature-length substance and will need a bountiful harvest of opening-weekend souls before a stench resembling brimstone dowses its box office flame.”

February 10, 2005 8:15 amby Jeffrey Wells
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