Alfred Molina Page 2

It's rare for an American remake to be scruffier than the original, but this film is an intriguingly messier take on the super-slick, hugely engaging 2009 Oscar winner from Argentina. Filmmaker Billy Ray (Captain Phillips) has stripped down the tone and revamped the plot considerably, replacing the original film's big emotional surges with grittier intrigue and subtle intelligence.

The story begins as New York security expert Ray (Chiwetel Ejiofor) returns to Los Angeles, picking up the trail of an unsolved murder he worked on 13 years earlier when he was an FBI agent. His former colleague Jess (Julia Roberts) is still in the FBI, while Claire (Nicole Kidman) is now the city's district attorney. Together, they secretly begin looking into the case again, tracking the suspect (Joe Cole) through the city and dodging interference from fellow agent Reg (Michael Kelly). But the investigation doesn't go as planned, jeopardising all of them in their current jobs. And Ray is having trouble sorting out his relational history with both Jess and Claire.

These three fine actors cleverly play with the delicate tensions both between them and in the larger picture. At the centre, Ejiofor is gripping as a man of conscience who is tenaciously hoping for justice in a seriously murky situation. Kidman adds a slightly cheeky tone as a woman who has achieved professional success but never forgets the dodgy choices she has made. And Roberts gets the showier role, losing all of her Hollywood glamour as the tomboyish Jess, a woman with layer after layer of emotional turmoil. The chemistry between them is fascinating, even if the filmmaking approach feels dry and aloof. But there's so much going on in both the story and characters that it's impossible to look away. Nothing that happens is quite what it seems to be, and the big ideas linger in the background, leaving plenty for us to chew on.

Continue reading: Secret In Their Eyes Review

One of Merlin's apprentices, Balthazar (Cage), has been searching for Merlin's heir for nearly three thousand years, finally locating him in New York City in physics geek Dave (Baruchel). Doubtful but intrigued, Dave learns that Balthazar's ex-colleague Horvath (Molina) is determined to resurrect the evil Morgana (Krige) to destroy humanity. But Dave is badly preoccupied by the fact that the girl (Palmer) he has loved since age 9 is suddenly showing him some interest. Can't this world-saving business wait?

Continue reading: The Sorcerer's Apprentice Review

Richard Gere, perfectly cast, plays Clifford Irving, a down-and-out writer who in 1971 wrote (and nearly got published) a fake biography of Howard Hughes. Desperate to jump-start his career, Irving duped his editor Andrea Tate (Hope Davis) and the top dogs at McGraw-Hill into believing he was not only a friend of Hughes, the notorious recluse, but that the billionaire had tapped Irving to write his life story. Smelling a publishing sensation, McGraw-Hill offered Irving a then-record publishing deal, and the writer suddenly found himself the crown prince of the publishing world.

Continue reading: The Hoax Review

Frida Kahlo's (Salma Hayek) first meeting with Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina) and her injury in a horrible bus accident set in motion the two major forces behind Frida. Bedridden for months in a full-body cast, the young Frida keeps herself busy--and learns to express her internal passions and pain--through drawing and painting. Falling in with the womanizing Rivera and his bohemian cadre of artists and revolutionaries deepens Frida's commitment to her painting and life with the loyal but philandering muralist. Their art carries them from Mexico to New York and back in the company of such impressive historical figures as David Alfaro Siqueiros (Antonio Banderas), Nelson Rockefeller (Ed Norton), and Leon Trotsky (Geoffery Rush).

Continue reading: Frida Review

Jarmusch enlists a diverse cast of indie stars and former colleagues for this modest ensemble, but his uncharacteristically wheezy writing frequently undermines the film's wry humor. Cate Blanchett, in a dual performance, plays an arrogant version of herself as well as her skuzzy, jealous cousin, but the piece's portrait of jealousy and resentment loses steam after you become accustomed to seeing the actress talk to herself. Similarly, The White Stripes' Meg and Jack White provide a brief lesson on inventor Nikola Tesla's Tesla Coil, but save for the creepy, Mao Tse-tung-inspired portrait of Lee Marvin hanging on the wall behind them, the skit is nothing more than an overly long non sequitur. And even a brief appearance by Steve Buscemi can't rescue an insipid bit about two argumentative African-American twins talking racial politics in a Memphis diner.

Continue reading: Coffee And Cigarettes Review

When the titular meteor (though it's the size of a footlocker it only leaves a 15-foot crate) lands in the backyard of a 12-year-old Irish laddie named Mickey, he presumes it was sent from heaven by his dead parents. Well, why not? Among his crazy grandmother (Brenda Fricker playing that matronly character once again), his unofficial godfather/drug addict/mob man pal Pete (Myers), and the wealthy scientist (Alfred Molina) who is given custody of the meteor by the government, Mickey's got a pretty messed up family life already. Parents speaking to him from beyond the grave sounds almost normal.

Continue reading: Pete's Meteor Review

Set against the idyllic backdrop of a quaint puritanical village in the French countryside, mysterious Vianne (Juliette Binoche) and her daughter, dressed in identical Red Riding Hood outfits, literally blow into town "on the North Wind." Within days, the duo brazenly opens a magical chocolaterie across the street -- gasp -- from the church, and on the first week of Lent, no less. Vianne -- who comes off as a 50's-era Erin Brockovich sporting low-cut tops and bright red stilettos -- is turning the townsfolk on to her sweets, which a la Pleasantville miraculously inspire increased sex drives, feminist awakenings, familial reconciliation and even criminal rehabilitation. Soon, the town's prudish mayor launches a campaign to drive the sin-inducing shop out of business.

Continue reading: Chocolat Review

Most movies about the lives of famous artists never provide a true sense of what drove the person's creativity. Even in a strongly acted, strongly directed biopic like 2000's "Pollock," for example, the closest it came to explaining why heavily splattered canvases were a breakthrough in modern art was when the painter's wife cryptically proclaimed, "You've done it, Pollock! You've cracked it wide open!"

But in "Frida," a transporting cinematic experience about the life and work of Mexican surrealist Frida Kahlo, director Julie Taymor captures the very essence of Kahlo's creative process through a wondrously rich, freeform visual language that fuses the events of her life with the imagery in her paintings so vividly that the artist's work may take on a striking new significance for anyone who sees the film.

Passionately played by Salma Hayek, who has been personally shepherding this project for seven years, Kahlo comes to life in this picture as a complicated, dynamic, proud and intelligent woman whose frequent hardships informed her art. Opening when she was a plucky high school girl (36-year-old Hayek passes for 16 with remarkable ease), Frida is established as a young woman with a spicy individuality even before the 1925 bus wreck that irreversibly altered her life.

Continue reading: Frida Review

The essence of Jay Ward's delightfully dolt-driven cartoons like "Rocky and Bullwinkle," "George of the Jungle" and "Dudley Do-Right" was always a resourceful, goofball mix of silliness, self-cognizance and good, dumb laughs -- a combination that might seem difficult to duplicate outside the medium of deliberately dorky animation.

But two years ago, the balance was mimicked surprisingly well in the live-action "George of the Jungle," with a perfectly cast, pratfall-proficient Brendan Fraser in the title role. But that balance is conspicuously absent as Fraser tries to fill the clumsy shoes of another Jay Ward character -- his vapid but lovable, lantern-jawed Canadian Mountie -- in the almost completely giggle-free "Dudley Do-Right."

Not only does the dilly dorkiness turn to idiocy, which in turn runs rings around the infrequent laughs, but just about the only engaging moment in the entire movie isn't even a sight gag or a goof. It's a completely serious stunt.

Continue reading: Dudley Do-Right Review