Bryan Singer, a director known for his superhero cinema (including X-Men and Superman Returns), is injecting a dose of modern movie magic into the classic tale of Jack and the Beanstalk. Though Jack the Giant Slayer features a strong cast, the action adventure sacrifices story for spectacle, says Eli Glasner.
FILM REVIEW: Jack the Giant Slayer
Categories: Movies
Oscar predictions: the shoo-ins and the should-have-beens
Categories: Movies
Tags: Oscar predictions
Sunday's Academy Awards ceremony could be a night of notable snubs and strange choices. From best picture to best screenplay to best animated film, Eli Glasner gives his predictions of who will take home the Oscar and who ought to win.
FILM REVIEW: Warm Bodies
Categories: Movies
Warm Bodies director Jonathan Levine breathes new life into the undead with the story of a zombie who falls in love. R, played by Nicholas Hoult, spends his days shuffling around a deserted airport until the day a girl, Julie, twigs some human spark in him. It's a mash-up of rom-com and horror, with enough twists to be truly engaging, Eli Glasner discovers.
FILM REVIEW: Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters
Categories: Movies
Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton do their best to save Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, with game performances as a duo who grow up to be bounty hunters. But there's only so much they can do with this medieval muddle of gingerbread houses, crude witches and modern firepower.
At first glance, Knife Fight looks like a promising political satire. A Democrat damage control wiz co-wrote the screenplay and the film features two familiar faces from The West Wing. Unfortunately the story of Knife Fight isn't as sharp as it thinks it is, writes Eli Glasner.
Continuing a career built on charming thugs, Jason Statham appears as Parker, a thief with a strict code of conduct. It's boilerplate stuff for fans of the bald Brit, but Jennifer Lopez seems an unnecessary addition to the formulaic film.
FILM REVIEW: The Last Stand
Categories: Movies
Arnold Schwarzenegger returns in his first feature film in over a decade in The Last Stand. While the plot is predictable and the characters cartoonish, the combination of an age-appropriate role and an energetic Korean director may be impossible to resist for the former Terminator's legion of fans.
FILM REVIEW: Gangster Squad
Categories: Movies
Tags: Emma Stone, Gangster Squad, Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling
Gangster Squad is a crime film where most of the pleasures are found on the surface. While the movie is predictable with generic action elements, the L.A. noir look of 1949 gives the shoot 'em up a sense of style.
FILM REVIEW: Zero Dark Thirty
Categories: Movies
Zero Dark Thirty is an ice-cold presentation of the long hunt for Osama bin Laden. Director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal show, but don't judge, as they document a prisoner undergoing waterboarding at a CIA black site. What ZD30 does provide is thrilling action sequences, an insider's view of the war on terror and an Oscar-worthy performance by Jessica Chastain.
Top movies of 2012
Categories: Movies
Tags: Lincoln, Looper, Moonrise Kingdom, Rebelle, Skyfall, Stories We Tell, The Master
From time travellers to pre-teen love, when it comes time to look back on the year in movies, our reviewer Eli Glasner had trouble keeping the list to just 10. Here's a ranking of the best that cinema had to offer, from the provocative to guilty pleasures.
From a rebooted Bond to naughty teddy bears to Batman taking his final bow, it's been a year of the fast, the filthy and the familiar at the movies. As we pause to catch our breath during the holiday season, however, it's a great time to discover some hidden gems of 2012. Eli Glasner shares his picks.
FILM REVIEW: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Categories: Movies
A new High Frame Rate technology that looks like harsh, unforgiving video is just the start of the problems with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Director Peter Jackson appears to be so devoted to J.R.R. Tolkien's original, he's forgotten he needs to tell a story rather than just fit all those dwarfs on the screen. Bilbo, who should be the centre of the action, is an enigma until he finally meets Gollum, far along in the epic-sized adventure.
Jem Cohen's We Have an Anchor
Categories: Live Performance, Movies
Tags: film, hybrid, Jem Cohen, music, We Have an Anchor
Jem Cohen doesn't call We Have an Anchor a film, but it's certainly an intriguing cinematic experience. A multi-screen film project accompanied by a live rock band, Anchor is an epic tone poem -- an ode to Cape Breton and Nova Scotia by an American filmmaker who fell in love with the place. Eli Glasner gets swept away.
Could High Frame Rate 3D hurt The Hobbit?
Categories: Movies
Tags: HFR 3D, High Frame Rate, Peter Jackson, The Hobbit
There's a storm coming to Middle Earth and its name is HFR 3D. As Peter Jackson long-awaited retelling of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit prepares to hit theatres, the director's decision to adopt a new technology doubling the movie's frame rate is getting a thumb's down from reviewers and industry figures.
FILM REVIEW: Anna Karenina
Categories: Movies
Tags: Anna Karenina, Joe Wright, Jude Law, Keira Knightley
In an audacious adaptation, director Joe Wright takes no prisoners with Tolstoy's classic novel Anna Karenina, adding a theatrical flourish to the story of love lost and found. While Keira Knightley and Jude Law shine, the real star is Wright's direction, which invites us to engage in an act of imagination.
FILM REVIEW: Silver Linings Playbook
Categories: Movies
A rom-com about mental illness, Silver Linings Playbook, the new movie starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, is a film with many sides, says Eli Glasner. Unconventional and comedic, its portrait of two people who refuse to be defined by their condition is ultimately moving.
FILM REVIEW: Twilight - Breaking Dawn, Part 2
Categories: Movies
The sun is finally setting (or is it rising?) on Stephenie Meyer's romance-ready vampires in The Twilight Saga. But Breaking Dawn - Part 2 offers some surprises: we've gone from sparkly to savage, with Bella now leading the charge against the evil Volturi. The newbie vampire heroine is improvement from the last instalment, but her change doesn't make up for movie's muddled middle and head-scratching finale, says CBC reviewer Eli Glasner.
Bond is back and renewed like never before in a movie that pays tribute to the past while making the case for 007's relevance. Daniel Craig gives us a Bond who is humbled and human, sent into the field by a commander (Judi Dench's M) harbouring her own doubts. Visually stunning, Skyfall has all the fun plus a few smart twists on the Bond formula.
A film about an amazing mid-air incident gets hijacked by a story about addiction in the new movie Flight by Robert Zemeckis. While Denzel Washington, John Goodman and Don Cheadle turn in strong performances, the trajectory is just too predictable, says film reviewer Eli Glasner.
FILM REVIEW: The Paperboy
Categories: Movies
A film featuring Nicole Kidman as woman with a dangerous obsession with a convicted killer, The Paperboy is filled with uncomfortable moments designed to unsettle you. It can be bold and brutal, but Eli Glasner says director Lee Daniels gets great performances out of his actors. Despite the difficult scenes, the newest movie from the director of Precious rewards us with moments of quiet tenderness and characters that constantly surprise.
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About the Authors
Deana Sumanac (10)
CBC News arts reporter, lit lover and music geek.
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February (9)
- Canada's Stella Sisters sing a birthday tribute to the Man in Black
- Oscar swag the ultimate consolation prize
- Oscar predictions: the shoo-ins and the should-have-beens
- Authors bare all for PEN Canada
- Anoushka Shankar and the One Billion Rising campaign
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January (16)
- 6 bone-crushing football films
- FILM REVIEW: Warm Bodies
- Justin Timberlake's musical comeback
- Argo moves to the fore in Oscar best picture race
- FILM REVIEW: Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters
- FILM REVIEW: Knife Fight
- FILM REVIEW: Parker
- Kroll Show parodies Degrassi with "Wheels, Ontario"
- FILM REVIEW: The Last Stand
- FILM REVIEW: Gangster Squad
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