Deepwater Horizon

By George M. Thomas

Mark Wahlberg stars as Mike Williams in
 "Deepwater Horizon."

DEEPWATER HORIZON could have easily taken an exploitative route and become the typical disaster flick.

Think POSEIDON ADVENTURE.  However entertaining such a film might be, in this case it would have been a disservice to those who perished in the most significant oil rigging accident in history, which caused a spill that still has lingering effects on the Gulf Coast some six years after the fact.

Instead, the filmmakers behind this story, which obviously takes some dramatic license, choose to concentrate on trying to tell a tale fraught with plenty of drama.  Every scene in director Peter Berg’s film rings with some element of truth.

Each situation within the film is allowed to stand on its own with respect to evoking an emotional response and while the film’s strength are those emotional elements, there’s little doubt that Berg (STATE OF PLAY, FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS) captures the epic nature of this accident and all of its tragic beauty with his camera’s eye.

Rock the Kasbah

Review by Bob Ignizio

If all you want is Bill Murray being Bill Murray, then you might be satisfied with ROCK THE KASBAH. As usual, Murray is funny and likeable as Richie Lanz, a washed up agent/manager who gets stranded in Afghanistan when the singer he has booked for a USO tour (Zooey Deschanel) goes awol and takes Richie‘s passport with her. If you want more than that, however, you’ll be sorely disappointed in this trite, cliché ridden film written by Mitch Glazer and directed by Oscar winning director Barry Levinson.

What we have here is a standard issue fish out of water story (Richie trying to deal with the alien customs of Afghanistan) mixed with a rags to riches tale (Richie discovers talented young Pashtun girl Salima (Leem Lubany) singing Cat Stevens songs in a cave and decides he’s going to make her a star). As an added bonus, we also get the tiresome cliché of Richie falling for a prostitute (Kate Hudson) with, you guessed it, a heart of gold and a sharp mind for business. And of course Hudson is 29 years younger than Murray.

Wish I Was Here

Review by Pamela Zoslov

There's a scene in Zach Braff's new movie WISH I WAS HERE in which Braff, playing a struggling actor at an audition, gives a fellow thespian (played by Jim Parsons) some advice on how to play the part. I had the urge to give Braff, who directed the film he co-wrote with his brother, Adam, some advice: Stick with the comedy.

The movie, like so many others, starts strongly. Braff, known for his generation-defining GARDEN STATE and his role on Scrubs, draws on personal experience to portray an upper-middle-class Jewish milieu with knowing, sardonic humor. Braff plays Aidan Bloom, an actor with a wife (Kate Hudson) and two kids. Aidan hasn't had a role for a long time (“since the dandruff commercial”), allowing his wife Sarah to support the family. His father, Saul (Mandy Patinkin) pays the kids' school tuition, on the condition that they attend an Orthodox Jewish day school. Aidan's daughter, Grace (Joey King) loves the school and is more devout than her parents; her goofy younger brother, Tucker (Pierce Gagnon) is largely indifferent.

Something Borrowed

Review by Pamela Zoslov

One of my favorite girlhood pastimes was playing a board game called “Barbie, Queen of the Prom.” The object was to get to the prom first, with the prettiest dress and the handsomest date. We would roll the dice to win one of four boyfriends, the most desirable of whom was Ken, a perfect, chiseled WASP of a fellow, on whose arm we would presumably spark the envy of all the other girls. Honestly, readers, this game and its questionable values messed me up for years.

I was reminded of this while watching SOMETHING BORROWED, a romantic comedy in which two women compete for the love of a man named Dex, played by the impossibly good-looking Colin Egglesfield, late of Melrose Place and All My Children. Aside from being a nice guy who will lend a law school classmate his only pen, Dex’s chief virtue is his underwear-model handsomeness. He is also maddeningly feckless, an object tossed about by two women and his parents, a helpless cork bobbing about in a sea of other people’s desires.