Go Memphis Stories: Movies

Film Review: 'Precious' delivers shock with message

beifuss@commercialappeal.com (John Beifuss) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:44:00 -0000

"Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire" expands into Memphis and other cities Friday after breaking per-theater box-office records the past two weeks in limited release. What "Precious" does well is to create sympathy and understanding for its unique title character. The movie functions almost as a public service announcement for the need for social service agencies, bootstrap initiatives and public education programs.

Film Review: Inspirational 'Blind Side' tackles gritty issues

beifuss@commercialappeal.com (John Beifuss) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 06:05:00 -0000

Sarah Palin isn't the only gun-toting, conservative Christian sports mom back in the news. This week also gives us Sandra Bullock as Leigh Anne Tuohy, the no-nonsense, git-'r-done, steel magnolia Memphis mother whose rescue of inner-city gentle giant Michael Oher provides the real-life inspiration for "The Blind Side". The movie is peppered with calculatedly memorable exchanges, which emphasize that this is more Leigh Anne's than Michael's story.

Moviegoers have lots to choose from during holiday season

beifuss@commercialappeal.com (John Beifuss) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 06:04:00 -0000

Two of the more eagerly awaited movies of the year open today: "The Blind Side," inspired by the real-life story of Memphis couple Sean and Leigh Anne Touhy and their adopted son, current NFL right tackle Michael Oher; and "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire," which has generated a lot of local interest (judging from my phone calls and e-mail messages), thanks in part to the endorsements of Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry.

Film Review: Character study marks good 'Education'

beifuss@commercialappeal.com (John Beifuss) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 06:02:00 -0000

This is stay-in-school week at the movies: "The Blind Side," "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire" and "An Education" all counsel young people to hit the books, not the streets or the sheets. In the first two movies, school offers the hope of not just salvation but survival. The stakes aren't as high in "An Education," but this impeccably mounted and acted BBC Films production is more successful at achieving its less-ambitious aim.

Film Review: 'Planet 51' is launch of the clichés

beifuss@commercialappeal.com (John Beifuss) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 06:02:00 -0000

"Planet 51" is a trite compendium of everything that's wrong with non-Pixar computer-animated feature films. The voice actors (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Jessica Biel) mostly were chosen for their name recognition, not their mellifluousness. The soundtrack is burdened with inferior covers of familiar rock and pop tunes. (Because the title planet is presented as an alien version of America in the 1950s, these songs include "Be-Bop-A-Lula" and "Long Tall Sally.")

Movie Capsules: Now Showing

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 06:00:00 -0000

The Box (PG-13, 116 min.) Director Richard Kelly follows the modern cult classic "Donnie Darko" with another implausible yet compelling science-fiction mystery about the hidden dark forces that control "reality." The first half is a brilliantly realized exercise in sustained tension, as mysterious stranger Frank Langella tells married couple Cameron Diaz and James Marsden they will earn $1 million if they only push a button and cause the death of a stranger.

Film Review: 'Twilight' sequel has more life than first movie

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:33:00 -0000

“The Twilight Saga: New Moon,” also known as “Twilight: The Squeakquel,” is actually pretty good — a tick better than the first “Twilight,” which wasn’t bad either. These are hardly superlatives on the order of “shattering” and “beautiful,” but compared to the film versions of “The Da Vinci Code” and “Angels & Demons,” the only two movies ever made with less sex than the first two “Twilights,” they’re matchless.

Going public with cancer battle, actress Kathy Bates aims to encourage others

beifuss@commercialappeal.com (John Beifuss) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 06:05:00 -0000

When Kathy Bates returns this week to her hometown, the Memphis-born Oscar winner will be applauded not just for her status as one of Hollywood's most sought-after performers but for what might be the most challenging and inspirational role of her career: cancer survivor. Bates will talk about her battle as the keynote speaker Friday at the 8th annual Methodist Healthcare Foundation Cancer Center Luncheon at The Peabody.

Film Review: '2012' merges disaster genre's greatest hits

beifuss@commercialappeal.com (John Beifuss) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:29:00 -0000

The bad news: The world as we know it has come to an end. The good news: Mommy's new boyfriend was squashed in the gears of a giant high-tech ark, so Daddy's back in the picture! In typical disaster-movie fashion, "2012" presents these events as being of more or less equal significance. Such Hollywood accounting may offend the literal-minded, but others will accept the equation as part of the preposterous fun of this campy if overlong exercise in gleeful world-smashing spectacle.

Film Review: Love, hate at play in 'The Damned United'

beifuss@commercialappeal.com (John Beifuss) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 06:05:00 -0000

As a film inspired by British football, "The Damned United" may hold limited appeal for Memphis moviegoers. But it's also a film about a form of unrequited or spurned love, which means it's a story about love and hate, which means it's a movie that everybody can relate to. And yet, it's a movie entirely without romantic love -- in fact, it's been a long time since I've seen a film in which women were so nearly absent.

Movie Capsules: Now Showing

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 06:00:00 -0000

The Box (PG-13, 116 min.): Director Richard Kelly follows the modern cult classic "Donnie Darko" and the ambitious failure "Southland Tales" with another implausible yet compelling science-fiction mystery. The first half is a brilliantly realized exercise in sustained tension, as mysterious stranger Frank Langella tells married couple Cameron Diaz and James Marsden they will earn $1 million if they only push a button and cause the death of a stranger.

Film Review: 'Fourth Kind' tries too hard to be real

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:45:00 -0000

The Fourth Kind” is a “found footage” horror movie with a few new tweaks, though not enough to escape a certain clunkiness. At the onset of Olatunde Osunsanmi’s film, actress Milla Jovovich addresses the camera to announce that she’ll be playing real-life Alaska psychologist Abigail Emily Tyler in re-enactments of actual events. These re-enactments, we are assured, are based on genuine video and sound recordings of Tyler and her patients in Nome.

Movie Capsules: Now showing

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 06:00:00 -0000

Capsule descriptions and starred mini-reviews by The Commercial Appeal movie writer John Beifuss.

'Coco Before Chanel': Biography of fashion designer hardly seamless

beifuss@commercialappeal.com (John Beifuss) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 06:00:00 -0000

When the movie ends with a brief sequence showing the now-celebrated French designer, Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel (Audrey Tautou), observing a lineup of models draped in her latest fashions, the sudden glamor and style appear to our eyes like a desert oasis to a man dying of thirst. We're made aware of just how tedious the movie had become in its slow, inevitable plod to Coco's triumph.

'Brothers at War" takes intimate look at combat life

beifuss@commercialappeal.com (John Beifuss) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:08:00 -0000

"I've been waiting for this film since the early days of the war," writes Roger Ebert about "Brothers at War," which he calls an "honest, on-the-ground documentary" about American soldiers fighting in Iraq. The Samuel Goldwyn Films release screens at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Malco's Stage Cinema, 7930 U.S. 64. Admission is $7, or $5 with military ID.

Take a bow: Indie Memphis receives grant from Oscars organization

beifuss@commercialappeal.com (John Beifuss) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:26:00 -0000

A golden statuette is nice, but sometimes green stuff is even nicer. The Indie Memphis Film Festival has been awarded a $10,000 grant from the Oscars organization, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The amount was the maximum available to Indie Memphis under Academy guidelines, based on the festival’s annual operating budget of just under $180,000. The grant was the first the Oscars organization had awarded to Memphis.

New on DVD: 'One Step Beyond: The Official First Season'

beifuss@commercialappeal.com (John Beifuss) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:17:00 -0000

From movie critic John Beifuss' blog thebloodshoteye.com: You've heard of the Twelve Days of Christmas? Now, for the fourth straight year, The Bloodshot Eye counts down the Thirteen Days of Halloween with reviews of recently released All Hallow's Eve-appropriate DVDs, each day through -- well, through at least Nov. 4, I reckon...