VARIETY'S REVIEW FOR STONE'S 'W'

The first review is in for Oliver Stone's take on the George W. Bush presidency. Far from a rave, far from a pan...

Via Variety:

Oliver Stone's unusual and inescapably interesting "W." feels like a rough draft of a film it might behoove him to remake in 10 or 15 years. The director's third feature to hinge on a modern-era presidency, after "JFK" and "Nixon," offers a clear and plausible take on the current chief executive's psychological makeup and, considering Stone's reputation and Bush's vast unpopularity, a relatively even-handed, restrained treatment of recent politics. For a film that could have been either a scorching satire or an outright tragedy, "W." is, if anything, overly conventional, especially stylistically. The picture possesses dramatic and entertainment value, but beyond serious filmgoers curious about how Stone deals with all this president's men and women, it's questionable how wide a public will pony up to immerse itself in a story that still lacks an ending.

To read the rest of the review, click HERE.

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HERE IT IS... FIRST 'DARK KNIGHT' REVIEW

Comes courtesy of Ain't it Cool News...

Scooper Tim Bisley compares the flick to "The Godfather, Part 2" and hints that the Joker's performance (via Heath Ledger) might be worthy of the best supporting Oscar. Perhaps... But let's not get ahead of ourselves just yet.

Says Bisley:

“The film feels more like a crime drama in a grand city scape than a typical comic book movie. It feels like Heat except Batman is Al Pacino and The Joker is Robert De Niro and just like in that film we have a great scene between Heath Ledger and Christian Bale across a table. There is also an element of a Greek Tragedy.. There is a vast sense of morality at play within the film.”

“The Joker is almost more of a terrorist than criminal. He is not motivated by money. He wants to see people suffer.”

“The run time is two and a half hours. It doesn’t feel that long as there is so much going on within the film.”

You can read the full review HERE.

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WILL 'HULK' BE INCREDIBLE?

Dark Horizons has long been a maverick film news and buzz web site and its webmaster Garth Franklin is often on the money with his reviews. Here is a brief excerpt of his take on this Friday's "The Incredible Hulk."

Not the home run that they hit the first time around with "Iron Man", this second effort of the new Marvel Studios is good enough that it fixes some of the key problems brought up by Ang Lee's generally dismissed first attempt at adapting Hulk for the big screen.

Despite a lot of outright hostility towards it these days, the 2003 "Hulk" remains a textbook example of a noble failure. Superhero movies are like the James Bond franchise - variations on the same formula. Those that truly succeed push the boundaries, but also stick to and make best use of certain pre-set structural rules. Lee's "Hulk" abandoned them altogether, crafting an odd blend of morose 'Jekyll and Hyde' melodrama and ridiculously flamboyant action-fantasy antics. Visually it was bold, even innovative, but in terms of storytelling it was a fascinating jumbled mess - distant, bloated, ambitious, arty and often impenetrable.

In contrast Louis Letterier and Edward Norton's new incarnation of the green meanie has no such lofty ideals or hidden depths. This 'Hulk' is designed purely for fast, formulaic mainstream thrills by mixing a chase thriller across the Americas with a few key set pieces of Hulk smashing up things. It's derivative to be sure, various scenes cribbing off better efforts of the genre along with other recent hits, but the script balances its disparate elements enough to likely satisfy fans.

To read the rest of the review, click HERE.

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'CHE' TO GET PALM D'OR? PLUS VARIETY REVIEW

Director Steven Soderbergh’s four-hour subtitled Che Guevera biopic, "Che" (presented as two films entitled "The Argentine" and "Guerilla") recently premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.

The online critical reception is already pretty good but a tad divided. The movie's questionable prospects and albeit controversial depiction of the Argentine revolutionary, (an uncanny Benicio Del Toro), have some waiting on the sidelines. That said, Cinematical’s Kim Voyer is incredibly stoked on both films and believes that bespeckled Soderbergh is a lock for the festival’s top prize, the Palm d’Or.

Also, here's an excerpt of the not-so-positive Variety review:

"No doubt it will be back to the drawings board for “Che,” Steven Soderbergh’s intricately ambitious, defiantly nondramatic four-hour, 18-minute presentation of scenes from the life of revolutionary icon Che Guevara. If the director has gone out of his way to avoid the usual Hollywood biopic conventions, he has also withheld any suggestion of why the charismatic doctor, fighter, diplomat, diarist and intellectual theorist became and remains such a legendary figure; if anything, Che seems diminished by the way he’s portrayed here. Originally announced as two separate films, “The Argentine” and “Guerrilla,” to be released separately, the film was shown as one picture, with intermission, under the title “Che” (although neither this nor any other credits appeared onscreen) in its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. Neither half feels remotely like a satisfying stand-alone film, while the whole offers far too many aggravations for its paltry rewards. Scattered partisans are likely to step forward, but the pic in its current form is a commercial impossibility, except on television or DVD."

To read the rest of the reveiw, click HERE.

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THE BROADS ARE BACK - 'SEX AND THE CITY' - VARIETY REVIEW

Papa H would've been down with about half the chipees in the "Sex and the City" quartet. We figure Carrie would be his intellectual favorite during those quiet times on safari in a candlelit tent. That said, Samantha would undoubtedly be the one up with him boozin' and bangin' all night. The first reviews for the long-awaited big screen version of the hit HBO show are trickling in and they ain't all that positive.

Says Variety: "For a series so steeped in romance, the eagerly awaited “Sex and the City” movie feels a trifle half-hearted. Although there’s pleasure in seeing HBO’s fabulous four reunited, writer-director Michael Patrick King doesn’t fully bridge the gap between TV and film — delivering major story flourishes but, too often, playing like a regular episode bloated to five times its customary length. Best in its small moments, the movie should find receptive gal pals congregating for the mother of all viewing parties, but appeal beyond that core should present New Line with less of a storybook finish than it doubtless would like."

To read the rest of the review, click HERE.

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