The Final Take with Parker Mott

Laughter in Dr. Strangelove comes from both fear and joy. The film’s entertainment value is paradoxical – we are amused by humanity’s pathetic, fallible efforts to overcome global destruction. With Dr. Strangelove, harmony and perfectibility in America no longer exists and Kubrick demonstrates this realization through a sort of nightmare comedy, a sub-genre where wit and woe coexist simultaneously in a hopeless struggle against the arrival of our doom. (continue reading…)

Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence are an odd couple in "Silver Linings Playbook".

Silver Linings Playbook takes the threadbare and discardable Hollywood romance flick and transcends it into a story with genuine feeling and discovery. Centering on a frantically earnest bipolar character, Silver Linings Playbook hits close to home for its director David O. Russell, whose 18 year-old son Matthew was diagnosed with the condition. But rather than lamenting, Russell embraces the involuntary quirks of bipolar disorder in his direction, making Silver Linings a remarkably sensitive work. (continue reading…)

A shaggy-dog-story, literally, pushes the grind of "Seven Psychopaths" forward.

There is a great scene near the end of Orson Welles’s very good 1947 film The Lady from Shanghai when three characters try to gun each other down in a hall of mirrors. Bullets fly shattering all the glass – we’re not sure what’s what and who’s who – until Rita Hayworth’s character is fatally hit. This sequence, taking place in a fun house, was supposed to last 20 minutes but was cut to three by the studios. Luckily the cinematic, visceral impact was still there and we were interestingly dipped in Welles’ character’s warped psychological state. (continue reading…)

Amy Adams and Clint Eastwood in "Trouble with the Curve".

The face of Clint Eastwood tells a better story than what’s at the heart of Trouble with the Curve, the new feel-good Hollywood dramedy where the words “cliché” and “generic” fit like a glove. Clint – that tough and wiry chap whose track record demonstrates a versatile personality of both steadfast invincibility and aged vulnerability. (continue reading…)

Rating: 14A – Violence, Language May Offend, Tobacco Use
Run Time: 91 minutes

Run Forrest Run!: Wilee the coyote (Gordon-Levitt) hustles down the New York streets in "Premium Rush".

Premium Rush was probably made for bikes the way The Fast and the Furious was for cars. Both are colourful and cartoonish romanticizations of their respective vehicles and don’t for a second break their smirk. They involve good-looking actors racing from one destination to the next, only this time Chris “Ludacris” Bridges isn’t waiting at the end of the tunnel. (continue reading…)

Rating: PG – Language May Offend
Run Time: 89 minutes

Robot and Frank.

A story about the sweet bond between an aging man and an ageless robot has the potential for pleasant viewing. That the terrific Frank Langella, an actor deft at displaying elderly torment, happens to fill the first unit shows high promise. Robots are machines and, therefore, defy first impressions. We view them based on their intentions towards humanity. Robot in “Robot & Frank”, unlike “2001″’s HAL 9000, means well. Thus, we can drop our guard and savor this man-machine relationship. (continue reading…)

Rating: 14A – Coarse Language, Sexual Content
Run Time: 96 minutes

Chris Rock is blindsided by Julie Delpy's high-maintenance French parents in "2 Days in New York".

2 Days in New York is not a model example of time flying when you are having fun. This is a frantic film for frantic’s sake. So much energy and fast-talking momentum invested into a screenplay without a lick of intellectual merit. It will immediately call to mind Woody Allen movies, where middle-class/aged New Yorkers rant about their issues in situations dressed up in bittersweet nostalgia and absurdities. (continue reading…)

Rating: 14A – Coarse Language, Sexual Content
Run Time:  86 minutes

Zach Galifianakis and Will Ferrell face off in "The Campaign".

The Campaign is about two blowhard Southern politicians trying to outsmart each other at the polls. However, the movie’s raison d’etre has little I think to do with the upcoming U.S. election. Instead, The Campaign is more an exercise in the comic personalities of Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis, who make better use of their screen time contending for our laughs than their characters do to get votes. (continue reading…)

Rating: 14A – Coarse Language
Run Time: 104 minutes 

Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan in "Ruby Sparks".

Writers can be so fickle. One day they are in a flow, the next their favourite computer key is ‘backspace’. Often, their insecurities dominate the creativity, with them thinking most of the time they are not capable of their passion and life pursuit. I admire writers like Stephen King and John Grisham, who seem to have novels published every week. But truth be told: creativity is like sun in autumn – it comes in and out. Some writers deny the existence of writer’s block. They’re liars. (continue reading…)

Rating: 14A – Sexual Content
Run Time: 100 minutes

All smiles: Tommy Lee Jones and Meryl Streep adorn "Hope Springs" with a necessary nuance and glow.

Hope Springs is a delicately small romantic-comedy that ambles at the heels of its spry performers Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones. Streep, 63, still brings a youthful glow, while on the other hand I can’t say the same for the 65 year-old curmudgeonly Jones. I wrote in my review of Men in Black 3 that Jones had certainly aged – I meant it. In Hope Springs, he finds a viable way of adapting his aging personality from mock-heroic bravado to a petulant and insecure old man. (continue reading…)