Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on August 2009 How do they say it? More of the same, only more. This bloated, accounting office-mandated, special effects-driven sequel to a fairly content-free original is bigger, louder, costlier and even emptier and more forgettable….
Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on August 2009 Though it’s unlikely that even the most nama of gaijin are unaware of Hachiko, a little background: this little Akita went to Shibuya station every day in the ’20s and ’30s to wait…
Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on August 2009 Unless you’re a fan of that little black dress and that famous perfume, this loopy, overlong hagiography is going to bore your socks off. A hugely miscast Shirley MacLaine plays the designer at…
Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on August 2009 A Disney movie about the Holocaust? Yes, I know, but read on. The story is seen through the eyes of a naïve 8-year-old German boy (Asa Butterfield) whose dad (David Thewlis) happens to…
Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on August 2009 They don’t make many westerns these days, but this solid, emotionally complex reworking of the classic 1957 film (from an Elmore Leonard short story) makes you kind of wish they would. It pits…
Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on July 2009 This documentary looks into a time of upheaval in the sport of surfing before it was even considered a sport, and its questionable transformation from laidback Hawaiian pastime to multi-billion-dollar global business. According…
Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on July 2009 This dark British farce by off-kilter Yank director Frank Oz (In & Out, Bowfinger) starts out—what’s the word?—frightfully slowly. But have patience, because it’s just calmly introducing you to its characters and building…
Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on July 2009 Normally excellent director Spike Lee lets his passion get in the way of his filmmaking with this leaden, poorly focused, 2:40-long would-be epic about the 92nd Infantry, the “Buffalo Soldiers,” black men fighting…
Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on July 2009 The music’s irresistible; the story, another biopic about another superstar junkie, is not. Hector Lavoe was a legend who is credited with blending Latin, jazz and pure New York vibrancy to create salsa….
Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on July 2009 “Put some dinosaurs in it,” some Fox studio exec undoubtedly decreed for the second Ice Age sequel. Until now, these mildly diverting movies had done one thing right: they’ve remained within their stated…
