Opening this weekend:
Elizabeth, the Golden Age (link)
Starring Cate Blanchett and Geoffrey Rush, to mixed reviews.
From Entertainment Weekly
“A production of exquisitely complicated wigs and expensively grand wide shots, it pauses often to admire its own beauty, leery of messing with previous success.”
We Own the Night (link)
Starring Mark Wahlberg and Joaquin Phoenix, again, mixed reviews.
From the New York Post
“Too slow to be a guilty pleasure and too dumb to be an innocent one…”
Tyler Perry’s ‘Why Did I Get Married?’ (link)
Starring Tyler Perry and Janet Jackson, for which I couldn’t find any critic’s reviews (mostly because I didn’t look very hard), but which seems to be largely enjoyed, if you believe ‘user’ reviews.
The Final Season (link)
Starring Sean Astin and Rachael Leigh Cook, to largely uncomplimentary reviews
From the San Francisco Chronicle
“…a perfectly acceptable sports movie for anyone who wants to see a sports movie.”
Please don’t recommend the Pony Party.
Without further ado, the floor is yours…
~73v
1 comment
Elizabeth was pretty pointless, and a huge drop in quality from the last film – at least in terms of character development, acting, and plot.
This boggles my mind: the Catholic League will get their collective panties in a wad over a irreverent but ultimately pro-Catholic movie like Dogma, but I haven’t heard anything on either Elizabeth, which are the most anti-Catholic movies I’ve ever seen in a theatre. In the first film, the Catholics were all black-dressed snakes led by a vampire version of Queen Mary, who practically spit all our lines at the innocent, young, white-clad Anglicans. In the second film, the King of Spain is played by Tolkien’s Wormtongue, Mary Queen of Scots is all twitches, hysteria, and bile, and all the Catholic operatives are storm troopers. It’s actually pretty funny in a completely offensive and puerile way.
Otherwise, the movie is just pretty to look at, and nothing else. The battle with the Spanish Armada is like a succession of the most beautifully rendered postcards you’ll ever see. Just don’t expect to care about what you’re watching.
A quick note on Tyler Perry: he makes films which are very popular with the target demographic, and very unpopular with critics. When Ebert wrote a bad review of his first Madea film, he got more angry mail than at any time in his career. Perry makes films specifically aimed at the black Christian community, so it’s understandable that something that might appeal strongly to that audience might not have much for other people.