 Rating: 1 out of 5 starsGenre: Crime, Drama, Romance
Opens locally Thursday, December 29th, 2011 (exclusively at the Cass City Cinema) Run Time: 1 hours 43 minutes, Rated R Starring: Colin Farrell, Keira Knightley, David Thewlis, Ray Winstone Based on the novel by Ken Bruen Written & Directed by William Monahan (directorial debut) London Boulevard is a dead end. As far as gangster flicks go, it’s somewhere way below Snatch (a movie that this film tries to emulate in style), and slightly above Gigli.
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 Rating: 5 out of 5 starsGenre: Romance, Comedy, Drama
Opens locally Friday, December 23rd, 2011 Run Time: 1 hour 40 minutes, Rated PG-13 Starring: Jean Dujardin, Berenice Bejo, John Goodman, James Cromwell, Penelope Ann Miller Directed by Michel Hazanavicius (OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies ) What a relief, that The Artist is upon us. In a day and age where we are continuously bombarded with too much information, with movies packed with explosions, effects, and 3-D imagery, The Artist transports us back to a simpler time in history. It is no surprise that The Artist is the early front-runner for Oscar gold (not to mention this year’s recipient for Best Picture and Best Director winner as awarded by the Detroit Film Critics Society).  Rating: 4 out of 5 starsGenre: Drama, War
Opens locally Christmas Day, December 25th, 2011 Run Time: 2 hours 26 minutes, Rated PG-13 Starring: Jeremy Irvine, Peter Mullan, Emily Watson, Niels Arestrup, David Thewlis Directed by Steven Spielberg On the heels of Wednesday’s The Adventures of Tintin comes another Steven Spielberg film, War Horse. I am not usually a huge fan of horse-themed movies, but War Horse is an epic and touching journey that is by far the better of the two Spielberg films you’ll find in theatres over the holidays.  Rating: 3 out of 5 starsGenre: Comedy, Drama, Family
Opens locally Friday, December 23rd, 2011 Run Time: 2 hours 4 minutes, Rated PG Starring: Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansson, Elle Fanning, Thomas Haden Church, Larry Miller Directed by Cameron Crowe (Elizabethtown, Vanilla Sky, Almost Famous, Jerry Maguire) A widowed father decides to buy a dilapidated house and moves there with his two children. There is a catch though: The house comes with a zoo.  Rating: 2 out of 5 starsGenre: Animation, Adventure, Family
Opens locally Wednesday, December 21st, 2011 (check for showtimes) Run Time: 1 hour 47 minutes, Rated PG Starring (voices of): Jamie Bell, Simon Pegg, Andy Serkis, Daniel Craig, Nick Frost, Cary Elwes Directed by Steven Spielberg The Adventures of Tintin is one of two Steven Spielberg movies being released this week (with War Horse opening Christmas Day), uncommon for sure by any director let alone a legendary one. The brilliant Spielberg is our generation’s most successful filmmaker, with an unmatched filmography of iconic films such as the Indiana Jones Saga, E.T., Jaws, Schindler’s List, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Minority Report, and Jurassic Park, to name a few. With Tintin, he gives us his first animated film, and shoots a rare misfire. It is adventure for adventure’s sake, a hollow and insignificant journey that is fleshed out about as much as the 2-dimensional comic book character it is based on.  Rating: 4 out of 5 starsGenre: Drama, Thriller, Mystery
Opens locally Wednesday, December 21st, 2011 (Special select 7PM showings Tuesday, 12/20) Run Time: 2 hours 38 minutes, Rated R Starring: Rooney Mara, Daniel Craig, Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgard, Robin Wright Directed by David Fincher (The Social Network, Fight Club, Seven) It’s not too often that we see a remake of film that was just released 2 years ago, but that’s exactly what we get with David Fincher’s version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. The original was a 2009 film adaptation of the best-selling novel of the same name by the late Stieg Larsson, but because it was a foreign language film (in Swedish, re: inaccessible to mainstream movie-goers), it begged to be re-made with a Hollywood budget. When it was announced that Fincher was on-board as director, it quickly became one of the hottest and most anticipated movie franchises around (it is part one of the Millennium Trilogy). So, does the new version live up to the hype?  Rating: 2 out of 5 starsGenre: Drama
Opens locally Friday, December 16th, 2011 Run Time: 1 hour 41 minutes, Rated NC-17 Starring: Michael Fassbender, Carey Mulligan Directed by Steve McQueen (Hunger) Shame is rated NC-17, but it didn’t have to be. It is a movie about sexual addiction, that itself is addicted to sex and nakedness. Be forewarned that this is not a movie for people uncomfortable with the material. There is plenty of sex, frontal nudity (both male and female), and adult content galore. At the risk of sounding prudish, couldn’t Shame have explored this subject with a bit of awareness that an audience will need to sit through it? There is a well-acted and shorter R-rated version of Shame buried somewhere underneath this one, and it’s a shame to think of how much more powerful that version could have been. Is the director trying to make a rebellious statement by releasing it as an NC-17 film? I think that a few cuts here and there would have been the bolder move actually.  Rating: 4 out of 5 starsGenre: Comedy, Drama
Opens locally Friday, December 16th, 2011 Run Time: 1 hour 34 minutes, Rated R Starring: Charlize Theron, Patton Oswalt, Patrick Wilson, Elizabeth Reaser Written by Diablo Cody (Juno) Directed by Jason Reitman (Thank You for Smoking, Juno, Up in the Air) We have grown used to cheering for anti-heroes on TV and film, from Tony Soprano (The Sopranos), to Vic Mackey (The Shield), to Walter White (Breaking Bad). It’s not too often when we are given a despicable female character to root for.  Rating: 4 out of 5 starsGenre: Action, Adventure
Opens exclusively in IMAX on Friday, December 16th, 2011, with wide release on Wednesday, December 21st, 2011 Run Time: 2 hours 13 minutes, Rated PG-13 Starring: Tom Cruise, Paula Patton, Simon Pegg, Jeremy Renner, Michael Nyqvist Directed by Brad Bird (Ratatouille, The Incredibles, The Iron Giant) Tom Cruise reprises his role as secret CIA operative Ethan Hunt, in this, the 4th installment of the Mission: Impossible movie franchise, which itself was based on the 1960's TV series. In Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Ethan's IMF (Impossible Mission Force), is implicated in a terrorist attack on the Kremlin in Russia which forces the United States government to institute "ghost protocol," a shut-down and denial from all agencies that the IMF even exists. Essentially, this leaves Ethan and a few of his IMF team members isolated in Moscow to investigate the real terror plot with little to no resources or available help.  Rating: 3 out of 5 starsGenre: Documentary
Opens locally Friday, December 16th, 2011 Run Time: 1 hour 44 minutes, Not Rated Directed by Carl Colby The Man Nobody Knew: In Search of My Father, CIA Spymaster William Colby is quite a mouthful to say but correctly sums up this mystery-based documentary. The filmmaker is the son of the subject, William Colby, who was a government agent and director of the Office of Strategic Services (a pre-cursor to the CIA) in the 1970s. His body washed ashore in 1996 after a solo boat ride, leaving some to yell conspiracy, accident, or even suicide. It’s a personal story that jumps in and out of focus on the man, and sometimes drifts to a larger world picture. The title of the documentary is accurate, and also the issue at the heart of the film…as the son doesn’t shed much light on the circumstances of the father, we don’t gain a ton of insight as to who William Colby really was, or what he stood for. The film is straight-forward as far as documentaries go. It opens with a capsulized version of his father’s life, and once we learn about the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death, the film takes us back to the beginning. It takes far too long to recount the details of his father’s journey, and becomes a historical documentary that grows slow and tired. |
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tom santilli movie reviews
Tom Santilli is a professional film critic, TV personality, host and
the Executive Producer of Movie Show Plus.
He also is the featured film critic appearing on WXYZ Channel 7 Action News in Detroit,
and appeared weekly on FOX-2 in Detroit from 2016-2020.
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