BOFCA REVIEW ROUNDUP 8/30

GETAWAYGETAWAY

“GETAWAY is nothing more than a horribly constructed action film with no heart, no purpose, no characters really worth caring about.” – Tim Estiloz, Examiner

“There’s not much to watch, at all.” – Bob Chipman, Escapist

“…the car chases are dull, the stunt work isn’t very interesting, and the characters would have to be fleshed out to become cardboard figures.” – Daniel M. Kimmel, North Shore Movies

“You can never vibe along with the car chases, the way you can with great car chases, because you never know where the hell you are.”- Jake Mulligan, EDGE Boston

 

THE GRANDMASTERGRANDMASTER

 

“Tony Leung plays Ip with a quiet dignity, allowing the unconsummated romance that develops between him and Gong to play out without melodrama.” – Jake Mulligan, EDGE Boston

 

 

shortterm12SHORT TERM 12

“It’s a delicate yet passionate creation, modest in scope but almost overwhelming in its emotional intricacy, ambition, and resonance.” – Inkoo Kang, Village Voice

“Fortunately, viewers are not meant to feel the heavy-handedness and are cleverly spared from any long-term emotional damage with careful dialog. ” – Monica Castillo, Paste Magazine

“There’s a gentle humanism here that reminds me of early Jonathan Demme pictures. Even the most emotional scenes are punctuated by jokes, the way life is so often funny and sad at the same time.” – Sean Burns, Philadelphia Weekly

 

AUSTENLANDla_ca_0416_austenland

“As a comedy, the film offers some amusing turns and touches; as a meditation on the pitfalls of romantic fantasy, it has little of note to offer, especially since this is, in some respects, less a film set in a re-creation of Austen’s books than a modern riff on the books themselves.” – Kilian Melloy, EDGE Boston

 

I DECLARE WARI DECLARE WAR

“I DECLARE WAR is a must-see for parents who want to relate to their kids … even if you should leave them at home.” – Kristofer Jenson, Dig Boston

 

 

BOFCA VIDEO UPDATE 8/28

Greetings all! The BOFCA YouTube Channel has been updated once again with two brand new videos. Firstly, here’s a brand new roll call now including our newest members Megan Kearns and Joyce Kulhawik:

And we’ve got a brand new Meet BOFCA installment, this time featuring member Inkoo Kang:

Keep tuned to this space and make sure to bookmark the Official Channel for more great exclusive content from The Boston Online Film Critics Association!

BOFCA REVIEW ROUNDUP 8/23

THE WORLD’S ENDWORLDS END

“THE WORLD’S END is the strangest buddy reunion movie you’re likely to see. It is a hilarious and refreshing comedy for summer’s end.” – Daniel M. Kimmel, North Shore Movies

“I’ve been tempted to call Wright the most exciting filmmaker of his generation; THE WORLD’S END bolsters my suspicions.” – Jake Mulligan, EDGE

“If this really is the end of a particular ‘cycle’ for these guys, I can’t wait to see what Act II is.” – Bob Chipman, Escapist

“Watching him make a fool of himself feels exhausting, a quality that speaks to Pegg’s credit as a performer, and his endless arsenal of seemingly improvised speeches wears out everyone’s patience for him with breathtaking alacrity.”- Andrew Crump, A Constant Visual Feast

“If you’ve seen the trailer, you know the lads’ hometown has been taken over by robots. One of the recurring gags is that the homogenization of marketing, advertising, and branding has made it easy for the robots to slip in undetected.”- David Riedel, Raw Denim

MORTAL INSTRUMENTSTHE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS: CITY OF BONES

“Yet for all that familiarity, the story is told with style and some wit, although there are moments that might make you roll your eyes.” – Daniel M. Kimmel, North Shore Movies

 

 

YOU’RE NEXTYOURE NEXT

“Manages to be refreshingly original – and all without relying on contrivance and artifice.” – Andrew Crump, Go-See-Talk

“It’s not for the squeamish. Fortunately, it wasn’t made by or for idiots either.” – Daniel M. Kimmel, North Shore Movies

“The only thing more shocking than the gore and the anything-goes body count is how sharp and well-written the screenplay is.” – Bob Chipman, Escapist

 

Ain't Them Bodies SaintsAIN’T THEM BODIES SAINTS

“Preaching from the Terrence Malick-is-God shrine of the cinema history chapel, Lowery tries on so many borrowed techniques that AIN’T THEM BODIES SAINTS never gets a chance to develop an identity of its own.” – Sean Burns, Philadelphia Weekly

BOFCA REVIEW ROUNDUP 8/16

 

KICK-ASS 2KICKASS2

“In between the swearing and the violence – some of it cartoonish and some of it not – this is really an adolescent anxiety movie.” – Dan Kimmel, North Shore Movies

“A sick, dirty, vile piece of work; but the real shock is how earnest it is in it’s call for self-acceptance and embrace of real do-gooder heroism.” – Bob Chipman, Escapist

“These are ordinary, everyday people acting out a fantasy of being fantastic surrounded by loads of violence, murder and mayhem. However, this sequel loses it’s innovative spirit early on, resulting in it being merely a warmed over rehash of a much better story told the first time around.” – Tim Estiloz, Examiner

“The most frustrating aspect of KICK-ASS 2 is how horrendously written all of the female characters are.” – Evan Crean, Starpulse

“I found KICK-ASS 2 to be not quite half as fun as the first one but probably a quarter as coherent.”-Monica Castillo, Cinema Fix

 

BUTLERLEE DANIELS’ THE BUTLER

“The excitement of THE BUTLER comes from watching the director’s rude energy chafe up against the stodgy constraints of a traditional Oscar-bait biopic.” – Sean Burns, Philadelphia Weekly

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, here’s Dr. King to explain how you are supposed to feel about the title character you have spent almost two hours supposedly getting to know.” – Bob Chipman, Escapist

“Its arrival at the cineplex could not be more timely or fortuitous. Too bad it’s not a better, more solid film.” – Kilian Melloy, Edge

“For all the bad dialogue—try not to think of Bill Cosby when someone yells, ‘I brought you into this world and I’ll take you out’—the actors redeem it and manage to transcend some of the clunky things they have to say.” – David Riedel, Santa Fe Reporter

“It would be a mistake to pigeonhole this as a film for ‘black viewers,’ as if the American history depicted here hasn’t impacted us all. This is a film that deserves a wide audience.” –Dan Kimmel, North Shore Movies

 

JOBSJOBS

“Do we need to spend five minutes experiencing one of Jobs’ collegiate acid trips as the camera cuts between ill-contextualized moments of his travels to India and whirling shots of Kutcher frolicking through a field of grass?” – Andrew Crump, Go-See-Talk

“After a while you wonder why you should care.” – Dan Kimmel, North Shore Movies

“Soon-to-be-famous people wandering through idyllic College quads in montage to the tune of Cat Stevens’ “Peace Train”? In a Baby Boomer hero-worship flick? You don’t say!” – Bob Chipman, Escapist

“Steve Jobs would have HATED this movie.” – Joyce Kulhawik, Joyce’s Choices

 

SPECTACULAR NOWspectacular-now

“Ponsoldt’s ambiguity marks one of the more brilliant flourishes he brings to a film full of them, but nothing impresses more than the deftness with which he turns genre convention on its head and mines the unexpected from the cliched.”- Andrew Crump, Go-See-Talk

“It’s human, soulful, and not at all what you’d expect a high school drama to be.”- Monica Castillo, Dig Boston

“The shots are clean, but the ideas and actions and feelings depicted are messy, they’re not easily articulated – they’re lifelike.”- Jake Mulligan, Edge Boston

“This film contains the same type of beautiful highs and bittersweet lows as Michael H. Weber and Scott Neustadter’s previous collaboration 500 DAYS OF SUMMER.” – Evan Crean, Starpulse

 

IN A WORLD…in-a-world_300_300_80

“It’s a film of its moment, a film that holds a spot in contemporary discussions about women in cinema (and arguably in society at large, too), but most of all, it’s the film that will secure Bell’s place in our cultural consciousness.” – Andrew Crump, Go-See-Talk

“There’s enough plot to IN A WORLD… to cover three comedies, but Bell has some tricks up her sleeve to keep the stories flowing without seeming forced, shortened, or unnecessary.” –David Riedel, Raw Denim

 

ATTACKTHE ATTACK

“THE ATTACK is viscerally disturbing, morally and even physically frightening; it lays out in stark and unflinching terms what we deal with, and how it changes us, when we come face to face with the sort of absolutism— or desperation — cut, dried, and implacable enough to die, and to kill, for a cause.”- Kilian Melloy, Kal’s Movie Blog

“Those gleaning for subtext will find only what they project onto it, and they’ll only see the baggage they bring in.”-Jake Mulligan, Edge Boston

“The action doesn’t ratchet up like it would in standard fare, but we do get a resolution of sorts. A complicated one, filled with confusion and sadness, true to the fact that real events like this don’t play by rules and don’t offer many answers.”-Norm Scrager, Film Racket 

BOFCA REVIEW ROUNDUP 8/09

 

ELYSIUMELYSIUM

“Few working directors out there are as effective as Blomkamp at telling a serious, yet entertaining story with a moral.” – Evan Crean, Starpulse

“…the sort of science fiction thriller some of us have been craving all summer only to see one film after another fall short. ” – Daniel M. Kimmel, North Shore Movies

“ELYSIUM is paradise– if you snooze through it; and you might.” – Joyce Kulhawik, Joyce’s Choices

 

WERE THE MILLERS'WE’RE THE MILLERS

“But this film’s eagerness to please functions as a slow poison, draining THE MILLERS of its vitality by rendering its characterization uneven, its potential undeveloped, and its plot predictable and stupid.” – Inkoo Kang, Village Voice

“This has not been a great year for film comedy… WE’RE THE MILLERS sets down that same low comedy road but then something odd happens: it’s actually funny.” – Daniel M. Kimmel, North Shore Movies

“Despite its by-the-numbers script and predictable story touches, there are enough funny—even unexpected—flourishes scattered throughout its 109 minutes to bring out the occasional gut laugh.” – David Riedel, C-Ville

“As comical as it is to watch these characters rebel against familial stereotypes, it’s even funnier to see how fast they fall into them.” – Evan Crean, Starpulse

“Occasionally, I am easily amused. This was definitely a guilty pleasure.” – Joyce Kulhawik, Joyce’s Choices

 

PERCY JACKSON: SEA OF MONSTERSPERCY JACKSON

“Forget Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, there’s not a single character here worthy of Ron Weasley.” – Jake Mulligan, Edge

“In the meantime, it’s a special effects laden fantasy where one can actually follow the action and focus on the characters. This summer that’s quite an achievement all by itself.” – Daniel M. Kimmel, SciFi Movie Page

 

2.JPGPRINCE AVALANCHE

“Ladies aren’t cast in the best light, but this is a dude movie in the middle of Texan backwoods.” – Monica Castillo, Dig Boston

“But more than the friendship-rivalry-I-won’t-call-it-a-bromance between the two stars, AVALANCHE is about the madness that simmers below their day-to-day-grind.”- Jake Mulligan, Rushmore Kite Flying Society

 

LOVELACELOVELACE

“The whole thing is just clunky, and worse, dull.” – David Riedel, Santa Fe Reporter

“Not many movies could pull off the same plot twice, and unfortunately, LOVELACE cannot justify visiting the same scenes twice only to add a layer of brutality.”- Monica Castillo, Bitch Magazine

BLUE JASMINE Blue_Jasmine

“The movie is a near-perfect capture of a woman on the edge of a nervous breakdown without going off the deep end into a farce.”-Monica Castillo, Paste Magazine

“It’s become a cliche that writer/director Woody Allen’s work had hit the doldrums critically for a bit, and lately, everything he’s doing has been cited as “one of his best in years.” BLUE JASMINE is better than that.” – Joyce Kulhawik, Joyce’s Choices