Category: Stu’s Reviews

Film Review- Hugo 3D

Title: Hugo 3D

Genre: Film

Grade: A-

Notable People: Martin Scorsese(Director), Ben Kingsley

Review: I really liked this movie a lot. The 3D was amazing and the cast is really good. The shots of Paris from the train station tower are wonderful and the clips from the early days of film are astonishing. Great movie for all ages; definitely a love letter from Scorsese to the movies. Must see in a theater.

Film Review- Double Feature- Moneyball/Ides of March

Title: Double Feature- Moneyball/Ides of March

Genre: Films

Grade: B-/B

Notable People: Money- Brad Pitt, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jonah Hill……Ides- George Clooney, Hoffman, Marisa Tomei, Paul Giamatti, Ryan Gosling

Review: cold winter day- went to a special two for one. These are both basic Hollywood films. Very good casts and the acting is good. Stories are both predictable and Moneyball was really long; you got to really like inside baseball stuff. Ides was more intriguing and Clooney directed. I’d save them both for video.

Film Review- The Skin I Live In

Title: The Skin I Live In

Genre: Film

Grade: A-

Notable People: Pedro Almaldovar(Director), Antonio Banderas

Review: I loved this movie. Spanish with sub titles. Almaldovar is brilliant and this movie is really haunting in a horror meets morality way. Banderas is striking and it is shot really well. Very dark, quirky and unpredictable. Run out and see it

Film Review- 50-50

Title: 50-50

Genre: Film

Grade: B+

Notable People: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, Anna Kendrick

Review: this movie was a sleeper. Went to see at the dollar theater and was really pleasantly surprised. Could be a tear jerker-and comes close- but it’s not. VERY emotionally moving film and I thought the acting was tremendous; subtle and complex characters. Rogen is mostly Rogen but with enough of an underlying twist to make it a new place for him. Oh and by the way- its the story of a young guy who suddenly finds he has potentially terminal cancer and how everyone around him handles that. Great turn by the long missing Angelica Huston as his mother.

Film Review- Martha Marcy May Marlene

Title: Martha Marcy May Marlene

Genre: Film

Grade: B

Notable People: Sam Durkin (Director), Brady Corbett, Elizabeth Olsen, John Hawkes

Review: This is a pretty strange movie- hard to decide on it. Can be very dark at times about a cult with some similarities to Manson- and a girls’ attempt to break away from it. Hawkes is subtle but mesmerizing as the Manson figure. Elizabeth Olsen is the sister of the infamous twins- and is going to be a big movie star.

Novel Review- Tabloid City- Pete Hamill

Title: Tabloid City

Genre: Novel

Grade: A-

Notable People: Pete Hamill

Review: If you don’t know Hamill you should. He was part of the great 50s-60s crew at the NY Post with Jimmy Breslin and Norman Mailer- and is still around writing really good books into his mid 80s. This is the story of a few days in the life on an aging newspaperman in NYC- as the paper folds around him; taken over by the web. A number of other stories of the city are woven in between. Hamill loves NY and its denizens and it shows. A captivating read.

Film Review- The Way

Title: The Way

Genre: Film

Grade: A

Notable People: Martin Sheen, Emilio Estavez

Review: This is an amazingly touching movie about the pilgrimage known as “the Way”- the Camino de Santiago- an ancient walk from the French Pyrenees to the Spanish Basque country; walked by thousands over a century. Sheen’s family is from the Basque region and he wanted to make this film for the last 40 years. It is directed , produced and written by his son, Emilio who has a small part in it as well. A breathtaking movie; emotionally connecting and spiritually profound. Don’t miss it.