World War Z

Review by Bob Ignizio

Let's face it, the world doesn't really need any more zombie movies. There are hundreds of the damn things, maybe even thousands by now, and most are just plain awful. Still, every now and then a good one does come along, and even more rarely we get one that has some genuine originality to it. In fact we had one earlier this year in Jonathan Levine's WARM BODIES. So despite my misgivings over the fact that the Max Brooks novel on which it was supposedly based, while a fine book, didn't really lend itself to a film adaptation, I was willing to watch WORLD WAR Z with an open mind and a spirit of hope.

It didn't take long for my hopes to be dashed. It was pretty much the first confusingly shot and sloppily edited zombie attack that did it. Showing the same lack of skill with action scenes that he displayed in the even more incoherently shot QUANTUM OF SOLACE, director Marc Forster seems to think that as long as a lot of stuff is happening really fast and urgently it will be exciting and cool. It isn't. You know what's exciting and cool? When you can actually tell who's doing what to whom, and you hire good special effects guys and stunt people who know how to stage action scenes that are genuinely exciting.

Killing Them Softly

Review by Marcie Gainer

Brad Pitt plays Jackie Cogan, a hardened hit-man, in his newest crime film, KILLING THEM SOFTLY. Two small time criminals hold up a card game funded by the local crime bosses and thus disturb the natural economics of the local crime scene. Cogan is hired by nameless, faceless, corporate-esque men to take care of those involved in order to restore balance. A high-profile lawyer (Richard Jenkins) acts as a messenger between Cogan and the nameless men.

The film is based on the novel, Cogan’s Trade, by George V. Higgins. The book was originally written in the 1940’s but the filmmakers position KILLING THEM SOFTLY in 2008 during the presidential campaign and, as we know, the state of the economy played an integral role. 

Moneyball

Review by Pete Roche

Looking for a way to get your high school athlete excited about trigonometry? 

Quadratic equations are co-stars in MONEYBALL, Bennett Miller's new based-on-a-true-story film about a budget-constrained general manager who uses pimped-out statistics to assemble a miracle baseball team.  Oakland A’s GM Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) injects America's favorite pasttime with super-science—only to learn you can't take the romance out of game.  

The Tree of Life (opening in Cleveland June 10th exclusively at the Cedar Lee Theatre))

[THE TREE OF LIFE opens in Cleveland on Friday June 10^th exclusively at the Cedar Lee Theatre.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

At the beginning of Terrence Malick's THE TREE OF LIFE, just after the quotation from the book of Job and the first of many shots of a glowing womb-like orifice, we are informed in voice-over narration that there are two paths in life: the path of grace, and the path of nature. These paths are represented as a married couple played by Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain. Pitt embodies the path of nature as selfish and destructive, while the path of grace taken by Chastain is put forth as the superior way of life. However, since the path of grace requires those who take it to love everyone and everything unconditionally to the point that they become doormats, I'm not so sure I'm sold.