Author: David Medsker

You’re a heartless, soulless bastard if you don’t like “August Rush.” The story of an orphan whose parents don’t even know he exists, who uses his natural gift for music to call his musician parents to him? That has “heart-warming tearjerker” written all over it, what’s wrong with you? For the record, there is nothing wrong with you. “August Rush” is brimming with potential – the lead, after all, is Freddie Highmore, the Cutest Kid on the Planet – but the movie is undone by a complete lack of confidence in the story they’re telling. I can’t remember the last time I saw a movie hedge its bets so frequently, and for no reason.

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According to Wikipedia, it took almost two years to edit “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,” and it’s still two hours and 40 minutes long. This is 20 minutes shorter than writer/director Andrew Dominik’s original cut, but 40 minutes longer than it needs to be. Were it not anchored by two agreeable performances from Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck in the title roles, the movie would have been completely lost in a wash of chilly rural country sides and fish-eye lens shots.

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Give Luc Besson credit for filling his animated/live action fantasy “Arthur and the Invisibles” with more imagination than you’ll find in most alleged children’s fare these days (ahem, “Happily N’Ever After”), which makes it such a pity that the movie gets completely lost in translation from French to English. (“Arthur et les Minimoys” is the original title) The American voice actors, even the good ones, never get a feel for the style or pacing of the source material, and the movie turns into a big race from one scene to the next.

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“The Art of Getting By” is the kind of movie that only exists in the magical world of indie make-believe, where high school kids have little to no adult supervision and order drinks in bars without getting carded. It’s also a movie slightly out of time, the quirky love story complete with a hipster folk-riddled soundtrack that was in vogue three or four years ago. It has its good points, namely a unique protagonist and two likable actors at its core, but the story takes the easy way out far too often for the sake of striking a cool pose.

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It’s clear what writer/director Nicholas Jarecki was trying to do with “Arbitrage”: he wanted to make a old-fashioned thriller about the guy who has everything but values nothing. It’s a very ‘80s mindset, and it’s fun to see people try to make movies that look like they could have come from another decade. Tony Gilroy did something similar with “Michael Clayton,” though that movie had some new ideas. “Arbitrage,” however, does not. You’ve seen this movie before, almost to the letter.

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“Appaloosa” is the kind of movie that you’ll want to like more than you’ll actually like it. There is a certain charm in its deliberate pace at first – though the first ten minutes will lead you to believe this is the Western version of “Shoot ‘em Up” – but it is not long before deliberate turns into languid, and the story isn’t compelling enough to justify the pacing.

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In 1994, Ron Howard was one movie away from director purgatory. No, you say, surely not the Oscar winning director of “A Beautiful Mind” and the man in charge of the sure-to-make-jillions “The Da Vinci Code.” Why, he’s a national treasure!

He’s a national treasure now. In 1994, he was the man who followed “Parenthood” and “Backdraft” with the ill-conceived Cruise/Kidman movie “Far and Away” and the god-awful “The Paper.” One more “Paper,” and he, not Rob Reiner, is directing “Alex and Emma.”

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You have to hand it to Mel Gibson. Sure, the man is the Grand Poohbah of crazy, along with every other euphemism for ‘nuts’ that they use in the chorus to Pink Floyd’s “The Trial,” but while his convictions have led him to make some profane declarations of late, you cannot deny that the man has onions. Is he really following his Jesus snuff film “The Passion of the Christ” with a tale about the fall of the Mayan empire, spoken entirely in Mayan? And he’s paying for it himself? Do you need a wheelbarrow for those stones you’re carrying around, Detective Riggs?

But balls and money will only get you so far. There is no question that Gibson is a competent filmmaker – and he has the Oscar to prove it – but if anyone in Hollywood could use some guidance, it is surely Gibson, and “Apocalypto” suffers from not having that helping hand that he desperately needs. It’s too long, unnecessarily graphic, and surprisingly plot-free for a two hour-plus movie.

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Some have gone on record as saying that the heavy metal documentary “Anvil: The Story of Anvil” is one of the funniest movies they’ve ever seen. From here, that is sheer schadenfraude. To find it hilarious, one would have to take joy in the band’s misfortune (of which there is a truckload), and anyone who does that is a) missing the point, and b) seriously messed up. There are some funny moments, yes, but the movie is more tragedy than comedy. If anything, “Anvil” is the mother of all underdog movies, and if you’re not cheering for these guys by movie’s end, then you simply have no soul.

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On the surface, “Anonymous” appears to be a radical departure for director Roland Emmerich, who has made his bones destroying the world by way of natural disaster and alien invasion. Look closer, though, and you’ll see that “Anonymous” boasts many of the same qualities of his action-driven work. It’s bombastic, needlessly complex, and about as historically accurate as “2012” or “The Day After Tomorrow” are scientifically accurate (which is to say, not very). As a work of historical fiction, though, it’s quite entertaining, and Emmerich coaxes some remarkable performances from his cast. It’s all a bit ridiculous, yes, but one should never let facts get in the way of a good story.

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