Sunday, January 6, 2013
The great, the bizarre and the awful.
The box office receipts didn't automatically match studio expectations in 2012. For once, some of the most lauded movies took money away from the mediocre ones. This year we saw superheroes, grown-up movies, genre mash-ups and cartoons scoring places at the top of the box office. Much was made about big flops, from the divisive John Carter and ridiculous Battleship, both of which starred the same unlucky actor. This topsy turvy year in the world of film is likely to lead to some interesting shifts in focus for actors and filmmakers alike. Out of respect and a hope for healing I'm sure we all wish for the families involved in Colorado, Cinema Siren isn't going to spend much time on the movie event in 2012 that made the most newspapers. Any…
Friday, December 28, 2012
Django Unchained a great, but ultra-violent genre buster.
"Django Unchained" is playing in Herndon. See showtimes here. If at this point in the season, dear reader, you are still hankering for Hallmark holiday rom-coms or your umpteenth viewing of "Rudy", let me suggest you give this review nothing more than a scan and toss away any thoughts of seeing Quentin Tarantino's latest. If however, you passed the worst dysfunctional family holiday in recent memory, "Django Unchained," the spectacularly politically incorrect and beautifully acted mash-up of revenge fantasy and spaghetti Western may be the perfect antidote. If you are a fan of the director's work, able to quote the lawn storage line from Pulp Fiction, run—don't walk—to your nearest theatre. You'll be talking about this movie for months to…
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Great acting makes you join in their crusade.
The film makers want to ask you, "Will you join in their crusade?" After much promotion and fanfare, a new musical film interpretation of Les Misérables is opening nationwide. For you non-"Mis" folk, the story is of Prisoner 24601 Jean Valjean, who breaks parole, is hunted relentlessly by Inspector Javert and encounters various troubled and impoverished characters in post-revolutionary France. Based on the 1862 novel by Victor Hugo, it is beloved by generations of musical theatre fans. The musical version of the movie was a risky undertaking, but now promises a huge pay-off to the studio, cast, and crew, thanks largely to a career topping job by several of the lead actors. The endless marketing about the actors singing live has also …
Friday, August 24, 2012
Cinema Siren interviews Mike Birbiglia
Those who live in the Washington area can rightly claim Mike Birbiglia as their own. He was inspired to take up stand-up comedy while studying screenwriting at Georgetown University. He has risen to the top of his career, selling out shows all over the globe, and releasing numerous successful recordings. Now, the feature film adaptation of his critically-acclaimed one-man show, Sleepwalk With Me, which won this year's Best of Next award at Sundance Film Festival, is coming to a limited number of big screens near us. The movie is the true story of how Birbiglia discovers he has rapid eye movement behavior disorder—a serious and rare type of sleepwalking—how he deals with it, his romantic relationship of eight years, and the …
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Delightfully Not for the Norms
This movie is not for the normal, usual, run-of-the mill cartoon movie fan. No. If your kids who are less fans of Mickey Mouse and more fans of Jack from Nightmare Before Christmas, or your tweens prefer Dr. Who to the Whos in Whoville, or if your family decorates more for Halloween than for Christmas, this is your kind of movie. If this sounds like you, you will be able to relate to and feel sympathy for the hero of ParaNorman. He is not like everyone else. He has trouble fitting in. So many of us horror movie lovers, and fans of zombie, vampire and slasher movies, can relate. Until lately, those kinds of interests just weren't cool. But Norman has another thing against him. He sees dead people. Toward the beginning of the story, this…
Friday, May 11, 2012
Patch's Cinema Siren reviews the new Burton-Depp flick, Dark Shadows.
Tim Burton, as the stylized director of such glorious oddities as Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice, and Ed Wood, is the pied piper to the inner goth in all of us. So it is with a heavy heart Cinema Siren has to report Dark Shadows, while it might have moments of loopy greatness and top-notch production and costume design, it is on the whole the most tragic of cinematic sins, a bore. The greatness is in some particularly exciting and fast paced scenes, that are strangely intermittent in its 116 minutes, and so at odds with the soap opera ploddings of the rest of the film. The first minutes of Dark Shadows show great promise. Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp, in his 8th partnership with director Burton) is the rakish son of a 1770s New World …
Friday, February 24, 2012
POLL: Weigh in with your choices for Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Actress; Academy Awards chat on Patch will start in time for red carpet coverage at 7 p.m. ET on ABC
Watching the Oscars Sunday night? Grab your popcorn and your laptop. Patch is rolling out the red carpet on Academy Awards night with a live blog that will start just before ABC's red carpet coverage at 7 p.m. This year's 84th annual Academy Awards, hosted by comedian and actor Billy Crystal, begins its broadcast on ABC at 8:30 p.m. "Oscars Red Carpet Live" will begin at 7 p.m. Patch columnists—movie critic Leslie Combemale and Fort Hunt Patch columnist Beth Jarvis—will co-host the live chat on Patch with an assist from Patch editors who also love the Oscars. Patch readers are encouraged to join in on their commentary of films, personalities and fashions. Both Combemale and Jarvis have been big fans of movies and the Academy Awards for …
Friday, February 10, 2012
Travel with low expectations or come for the cartoon.
Cinema Siren is here to help. I really am. I'm also first and foremost a movie lover, who happens to have become a critic to try to get you back into the movie theaters to enjoy that most rewarding of escapist pleasures. Cinema on the big screen is where you might be transported for two hours into another world, guided by artists who aspire to elevate, enliven, transform or change us with their work. That's my hope. They can't all be winners. I stand by my belief that all movies start out with those involved having aspirations of making something great, promoting the talents of the artists involved or at least making something fun. Journey 2: Mysterious Island is fun… The kid from Journey to the Center of the Earth (Josh Hutcherson) …
Johta
9:33 pm on Sunday, January 6, 2013
I feel as though movies are cheap compared to other things. A matinee costs $9.50. A burrito and drink from Chipotle costs the same. A round of mini-golf at Woody's is $10. You'll spend more than $9.50 on a trip to the mall or any type of shopping center. Going to the movies is one of the cheapest outings there is, aside from a nice free day in the park. I only go to matinee's and haven't bought … more ›