Author Archives: Eleanor Ringel

Oscar nominations are out and probably the only thing Oscar addicts enjoy as much as second-guessing the eventual winners is second-guessing who got nominated and who got snubbed.

Here are some random thoughts on last Tuesday’s naming names:

Best Picture

“The Artist” “The Descendants” “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” “The Help” “Hugo” “Midnight in Paris” “Moneyball” “The Tree of Life” “War Horse”

With the Best Picture category expanded to anywhere between 5 and 10, you’d think there wouldn’t be any snubs. And there weren’t…well, yeah there were.
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By Eleanor Ringel Cater

In many ways, “The Descendants” is a descendant of “Terms of Endearment.” New terms and new endearments for a new century.

But some things are forever…like families and the bonds that not only tie but also choke.
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By Eleanor Ringel Cater

The mortality rate in “Immortals” is a mile-high, and I wondered for a while if, perhaps, I might’ve enjoyed the carnage more if I had opted for the 3-D version.

Or even the 3-D IMAX version.

But I’m pretty certain that there’s nothing that could improve this disastrous mish-mash of vaguely mythological references, rendered with blood-spurting splendor by director Tarsem Singh. A specialist in Omigod over-the-top visuals (remember “The Cell,” starring Jennifer Lopez in her first incarnation?), Singh may have been aiming for the next “300.”
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By Eleanor Ringel Cater

The last time Clint Eastwood tried to make up for the implied homophobia in his Dirty Harry character, it was a stumbling, ineffective adaptation of “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” (though, to give Clint a break, the book is stumbling, ineffective and false, false, false in its claim to be non-fiction).

A more mellow, more awarded, more experienced Eastwood has another go at it with “J. Edgar,” his ambitious, richly filmed and ultimately unsatisfying take on J. Edgar Hoover, the founder and, for almost 50 years, head of the FBI.

What Eastwood and his star, Leonardo DiCaprio, try to do is reconcile the at-odds aspects of Hoover’s character.
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By Eleanor Ringel Cater

“Martha Marcy May Marlene” is a curious tale of multiple identity.

Unlike “The Three Faces of Eve” or “Sybil,” in which the protagonists’ different personalities came from within, the young woman — brilliantly played by Elizabeth Olsen — in Sean Durkin’s impressive debut film, lets her identity be defined by others.

The film begins with Olsen sneaking out of a commune-like settlement in upstate New York (these details are filled in later).
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By Eleanor RIngel Cater

The recent trend in horror has become so vulgar and bloody (“Saw 12” anyone?) that we’ve almost forgotten the satisfying shiver of less obvious scares.

Say, the eeriness of a terrific haunted house movie.

I recently saw the new prequel “The Thing,” (a fabulous film that offers a variation on the Haunted House theme) and that may have set me thinking.

So, as Rod Serling might say, consider these unhappy habitats.
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By Eleanor Ringel Cater

If someone had told me there was going to be a remake of an early ‘80s dance movie with a one-word title that starts with “F,” I would’ve guessed, without a second’s hesitation, “Flashdance,” starring a very sexy Jennifer Beals (and her body double) as a dancing welder in Pittsburgh.

I would’ve been wrong.

Instead, Hollywood has hired the once-mighty Craig Brewer (“Hustle and Flow”) to direct an almost scene-for-scene remake of “Footloose,” the movie that — along with “Diner” and a few others — launched Kevin Bacon’s career.
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By Eleanor Ringel Cater

Oh, for the good ol’ days of a strong economy. The days when a Hollywood disaster movie was about a meteor or a volcano.

No such luck in “Margin Call,” a small-budget film with an unexpected deep impact.

The year is 2008. The place: a brokerage firm, somewhere on the top floors of one of Manhattan’s shiniest towers of finance, that’s about to be hit by today’s equivalent of a volcano or meteor: an economic meltdown.

We begin with a staff-slashing bloodbath. “Better not to watch,” veteran Paul Bettany tells newbie, Zachary Quinto, as two automatons in expensive heels wander through the office, dispensing their nothing-personal kiss of death.
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By Eleanor Ringel Cater

“The Ides of March” doesn’t deserve burying.

But it doesn’t exactly deserve praise, either (thank you, Marc Anthony).

The title is somewhat misleading. Anyone who knows the “Julius Caesar” reference, “Beware the Ides of March,” will be expecting something dire done to the movie’ main politico — a Pennsylvania governor named Mike Morris (George Clooney) who’s in a tight race for the Democratic Presidential nomination. The battleground: a make-or-break Ohio primary.

Then again, anyone who really knows Shakespeare’s play also knows that Caesar is more of a supporting character. The focus is on his underlings — here embodied by various campaign managers, strategists and media advisors.
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By Eleanor Ringel Cater

I think I know what’s wrong with “Moneyball.”

Unlike what happens on screen — Oakland A’s General Manager Billy Beane computerizes his way to a winning team — the stats don’t add up.

For those who don’t live and die by the boys of summer, here’s a better explanation of what Beane (well-played by Brad Pitt) did. He hired a computer whiz (Jonah Hill) to apply “Sabermetrics” to building a team.

Translation: nothing about a player mattered to Beane except for how he came across statistically. As in, his ability to get on base.
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