Friday film roundup: Award Contenders Take Us Back to School
Today’s film roundup from Past the Popcorn:
The big stories this week are The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and Michael Clayton — and both are from first-time directors. What’s more, both of them will probably be up for some award nominations, at least in the technical departments and probably for acting, too.
Assassination, directed by writer Andrew Dominick, is more of a straight character study than a Western, really, and its focus is on Bob Ford, not on Jesse James. Greg Wright calls it “a compelling genre piece, … a competent character study, … pretty darned entertaining (if slow),” and “one of the most artistically accomplished pieces of cinema since last Christmas.” Still, he warns, “you’re looking for genre conventions, wild gunfights, rousing chase sequences, or cut-and-dried answers, though, you’re bound to be disappointed.”
Michael Clayton, written and directed by Tony Gilroy (who also wrote the Bourne movies, among many others) is a George Clooney vehicle that burns rubber in slo-mo. Clooney plays a hotshot legal fixer who’s run into a Mack truck of a broken case. Wright says that very early into the film “you’ll know that, at the very least, you’re in for a visual treatâ€and something of a mystery.” He concludes by calling the film “one of the most intelligent and artful films of the year so far.” Two in one week!
In the kids’ department, Greg finds The Seeker a part of “the recent trend of films that respect the intelligence of younger audiences,” calling the film “another good step in that direction.” It’s got its flaws, but is still pretty solid nonetheless.
Also out this week is Ira and Abby, an R-rated comedy that champions domestic partnerships instead of marriage, and The Heartbreak Kid, the latest entry in a series of R-rated date movies that include nearly soft-porn sequences.
