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An idealistic campaign politico (Ryan Gosling) backs a presidential contender (played by George Clooney ) and finds himself immersed in a world of double-crossing dirty politics and in a morass of moral and ethical dilemmas. This is a nail-biter of a political drama, as poignant a commentary on contemporary politics as Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men or Michael Ritchie’s The Candidate . It can be taken as both a condemnation of today’s political and electoral system and as a cautionary tale about how and where we place our political trust. With writing, producing and directing chores, Clooney , nominated for an Oscar for directing Good Night and Good Luck , delivers a smart, well-paced movie that shines with a cast that includes Phillip Seymour Hoffman as a crafty career campaign manager, Evan Rachel Wood as the intern that catches Gosling’s eye, Marisa Tomei as a New York Times reporter working all the angles, and Paul Giamatti as the man who throws the wrench into the work...

The 1971 version of this film, starring Dustin Hoffman and co-written and directed by the Sam Peckinpah ( The Wild Bunch ), is a classic tale of violence visited upon the innocent, and how violence begets violence. This remake, directed by a capable Rod Lurie ( The Contender ), stars James Marsden and Kate Bosworth and is set in the rural South instead of rural England, but the story stays surprisingly close to the original. A couple of city mice move to the country, and the hubby is a fish out of water in his wife’s home (hick) town. He’s not welcomed by the locals, relationships are strained and things get ugly, his wife is brutally violated and before all is said and done the couple's home is horribly and terribly besieged, and they must fight for their very lives. Straw Dogs is one of those films that should not have been remade (at the very least with present company). Instead of improving on the original it only manages to come off as a grainy monochrome copy of a colorfu...

I have long been a fan of The Planet of the Apes , a series of movies, a television series and a Saturday morning cartoon all based on a novel by French writer Pierre Boulle. While the Apes television series from the 1970s is more or less kids’ stuff, the original 1968 film starring Charlton Heston and Roddy McDowell is a classic work of science fiction. Not only does the film make social comment in the guise of a space fantasy, but it includes one of the most memorable endings in twentieth century cinema, thanks to screenwriter Rod Serling. The subsequent Apes films became progressively poorer, and the 2001 reboot by director Tim Burton was met with mixed results. But Apes has had legs, and remains a valuable property for 20th Century Fox, so it’s no surprise that Fox has rebooted again with Rise of the Planet of the Apes , starring James Franco, Frieda Pinto, John Lithgow and Brian Cox. Hollywood loves telling “origin” stories these days ( Green Lantern, Iron Man, X-Me...

Like super heroes, not all comic book movies are equal. Marvel has done a mostly terrific job with their franchises, with a slew of super types getting ready for an Avengers movie next year. The DC hero, Green Lantern, gets the big screen treatment this year with director Martin Campbell ( Casino Royale , Edge of Darkness ) at the helm, and an A-list cast that includes Ryan Reynolds, Peter Sarsgaard, Angela Bassett, Michael Clarke Duncan, Geoffrey Rush (voice) and Tim Robbins. Martin does the best he can with what a slew of screenwriters have given him. The film looks good and Reynolds is passable as the hero, but the script is talky, predictable, clunky, and not nearly as tight as, say, Iron Man or its sequel. Sarsgaard, an actor I pay attention to, is almost unrecognizable as the nasty villain Hector, and he chews the scenery and does the best with the clichéd dialogue and one-dimensional character he’s saddled with. The once-great Tim Robbins dials in a performance as a senator who...

I don't go into many movies blind, but with Super 8 I did. I had read nothing about the film, nor had I seen the trailer. I only knew that it was directed by J.J. Abrams ( Lost, Star Trek ). Now that I have seen it I have read up on the film. Read about Abrams's connection to Steven Spielberg in 1982, how Speilberg , having seen the teenager's student Super 8 film, hired Abrams and a friend to restore his own decaying Super 8 movies from the director's childhood days. How Spielberg encouraged Abrams to say "yes" to the Trek reboot. How Super 8 is E.T. retooled for the new millennium . And so on. And in many ways it is something of a retelling, or homage, to E.T. And I came out of the film having enjoyed it but not knowing what I really thought about it. The first hour was enthralling. Teenagers making their own Super 8 movie find themselves involved in something strange and mysterious and terrible. SPOILER ALERT . And yes, there's an alien who only ...

In the wake of the assassination of President Lincoln, a boardinghouse keeper named Mary Surratt (Robin Wright) is charged with conspiracy to murder the president. John Wilkes Booth and his henchmen met at Surratt’s boarding house to plan their misdeeds, and Secretary of War Stanton (Kevin Kline, playing this despicable character with an understated zest) is determined to see her hang at the hands of a military court no matter the facts of the case. This is a courtroom drama with a great backstory, set in a time of fear and chaos, its plot driven by the power of the characters involved. James McAvory is the former Union captain-now-lawyer assigned to defend Surratt despite his conviction that she is guilty. He is torn between his personal beliefs and his desire to do his job to defend Surratt to the best of his ability, and it is this conflict that is central to The Conspirator . Having taken the case is already turning out to be ruinous to his career, but to win the case would mean m...

In 2009, director Duncan Jones brought his film Moon to the Seattle International Film Festival. The screening was sold out and very well received. After the screening and the Q&A I wondered what this talented, energetic director would do next. And here it is. Source Code is a tightly written, tautly directed thriller that surprised and delighted me as much as Moon did almost two years ago. The film finds an Army captain Jake Gyllenhaal repeatedly transported to a commuter train in Chicago in order to find out who is about to blow it up. He has eight minutes before detonation , and after the explosion he must return (in Groundhog Day fashion) to repeat the same eight minutes over and over again until his mission succeeds. I won’t try and explain the “science” of how this works. The film does a decent job of it, so I won't steal Jones's and writer Ben Ripley's thunder. But I will say that the film turns and twists its way to its satisfying and very unexpected conc...

BEST PICTURE – THE KING’S SPEECH TRUE GRIT is my favorite film of 2010, and my pick if I were handing out the Oscars. THE FIGHTER is also remarkable, in my top three along with BLUE VALENTINE, but I think my number four is the most “ Oscarly ,” if you will, and deservedly so. BEST DIRECTOR – DAVID FINCHER , THE SOCIAL NETWORK This category is a close one, but I think that although THE KING’S SPEECH will get the best picture nod, David Fincher ’s work exceeded so many expectations that the best picture/director category will be split this year. BEST ACTOR – COLIN FIRTH, THE KING’S SPEECH I have not seen Javier Bardem ’s performance in BIUTIFUL , but have seen the others. My personal favorite is Jeff Bridges in TRUE GRIT, but Bridges won the Best Actor honor last year. Jesse Eisenberg is terrific in THE SOCIAL NETWORK, and James Franco’s work in 127 HOURS is truly an achievement. However, it’s Colin Firth’s time. BEST ACTRESS – JENNIFER LAWRENCE, WINTER’S BONE The odds have Natalie Port...