Whatever, Ice Moon Enemies (Weekly Links)

Movies I reviewed for the Herald this week.

Public Enemies. “Whatever strikes Mann’s fancy.”

Whatever Works. “Tighter and funnier than Woody’s been lately.”

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. “Diminishing returns.”

Moon. “Inquiring about the nature of being human.”

Captain Abu Raed. “It almost doesn’t matter if the story is old.”

On KUOW-FM, Mark Rahner and I talk about zombies and Rotten with “Weekday” host Steve Scher: here.

Movie Diary 6/24/2009

It Might Get Loud (Davis Guggenheim, 2009). Interesting idea – put three generations of rock guitarists in a room for a summit meeting – although we spend less time in the room than we do tracking some conventional how-they-got-here background material. The three are Jimmy Page, The Edge, and Jack White; the most human of the bunch is The Edge.

Whatever Works (Woody Allen, 2009). It sounds like the same old thing: aging kvetch (this time played by Larry David), worried about germs and death, irresistible to very young women. Right? But Allen’s timing is back, and if this were a movie by a young unknown filmmaker I think it would look pretty good. (full review 7/3)

Tulpan (Sergey Dvortsevoy, 2008). From the first minute you can see that a crafty filmmaker is at work; not content to lean on the spectacularly empty Kazakh steppes, Dvortsevoy shows a talent for deadpan humor and a touch with actors. (full review 6/26)