Have ever seen a really elaborate, professionally set-up dominoes game? You touch one domino and it sets everything in motion – down ridges, around corners, up hills, in multiple streams, with so much happening simultaneously […]
Author: Bob Gibbons
review – whiplash
Like the best independent movies, this one uses a small, tight story about music to tell a universal story about life. On one level, it’s the story of a first year student – a drummer […]
review – jack ryan: shadow recruit
I’ve never been a fan of the late Tom Clancy’s long, involved, sometimes convoluted Cold War thrillers, but somehow his character Jack Ryan has survived thirty years and four major actors (Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, […]
review – august osage county
In some ways, this may be the “feel good” movie of the year because, no matter how dysfunctional your family is, this movie will make you feel good that yours is far less vitriolic and […]
review – the wolf of wall street
This is a three-hour movie. Any movie that needs three hours to tell its story – and intends to tell it in an interesting way — needs to have a lot of either “spectacle” or […]
Review – The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Ben Stiller missed the point. Walter Mitty is a meek and mild-mannered person who has heroic daydreams. He doesn’t actually go on those adventures; he just imagines them. Being “a Walter Mitty” means you’re a […]
review – lone survivor
Let’s have a little quiz to get this party started. First question: Four Navy SEALs (Mark Wahlberg, Ben Foster, Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch) start out on a mission in Afghanistan. How many return? (Hint: see […]
review – saving mr. banks
If you were to ask those who know movies to make a list of the most enjoyable musical films, with the most loved songs, ever, “Mary Poppins” — with music and lyrics by Richard and […]
review – american hustle
What we have here are two small-time dreamers trying to reinvent themselves. Because everybody hustles. She’s Sydney Prosser (Adams) from New Mexico; he’s Irving Rosenfeld (Bale) from the Bronx; they meet at a pool party, […]
Review – Frozen
This Disney film comes not from Pixar, but from Walt Disney Animation Studios and in style, story, and sensibility, this looks like classic Disney moviemaking. Somehow, for reasons I can’t define, it just feels different […]
review – philomena
As a director, Stephen Frears knows how to find the heart, the humanity, and the humor in situations and create movies that tell small stories in wonderfully intelligent ways. He did it in “Dirty Pretty […]
Review – Nebraska
So what we have here is a beautifully-photographed movie – in black and white – with a wonderfully-underwritten performance at its center – telling a story of ordinary days filled with ordinary people who do […]
Review – The Book Thief
This movie was shot by Florian Ballhaus (he also shot “The Devil Wears Prada”) and his work here is so perfect and polished, it’s initially distracting. It’s 1939 in Germany, a time of dark desperation, […]
Review – The Counselor
Halfway through this almost two-hour movie, the Counselor (Fassbender) asks Westray (Pitt): “What happens next?” A better question would have been: “What’s happened so far?” The answer to both: “It’s difficult to determine.” If you’ve […]
Review – All Is Lost
In some ways, this is a perfect title. Here is what will be “lost” if you decide to see this movie: your time, the price of admission, the cost of transportation to get there, any […]
Review – The Fifth Estate
“Man is least himself when he talks as his own person,” Julian Assange (Cumberbatch) says early in this film. “But if you give him a mask, he will tell you the truth. …if we could […]
Review – 12 Years A Slave
This is such a difficult story to watch. It’s violent, sadistic, unspeakably cruel. There is such an all-pervasive sense of hate surrounded by an unmitigated feeling of helplessness. It may be an educational film; it […]
review – ‘don jon’
Joseph Gordon Levitt is arguably one of the best actors of his generation. Scarlett Johansson started out at a very young age displaying huge talent. Now he and she are together in a movie with […]
review – ‘enough said’
This is an old-fashioned love story for grown-ups. It’s a story about second chances jeopardized by second guesses, about ordinary days changed by an extraordinary coincidence, about two people who were not attracted to each […]
review – ‘closed circuit’
Red herrings are one thing. But this murder mystery seems filled with partially fileted fish of all kinds in the hands of a chef who can’t decide on a recipe. This is a dark and […]
review – ‘the butler’
This is a kind of ‘Forrest Gump’ with a focus on the Civil Rights Movement. It’s the story of segregation slowly, if incompletely, becoming integration – told through the story of one remarkable man – […]
reveiw – ‘grown ups 2’
Picture this: it’s a summer morning back in the days of your youth, nothing much going on, nothing planned. One by one, your friends – they all live in the neighborhood, as they did back […]
review – ‘the way way back’
This movie will touch you, it will tickle you, it will make you smile and nod in knowing recognition because this is a movie that remembers what it was like to be fourteen years old […]
review – ‘the lone ranger’
For seventy years, the Lone Ranger has been about “…a fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust, and a hearty Hi-Yo Silver…” Here, it’s about mugging for the camera, massive special […]
review – ‘man of steel’
The budget for this film was $225 million. I wonder if any of it was spent on the script? The trailers had convinced me it would be my favorite super-hero movie of the summer – […]
LOS ANGELES FILM REVIEW 