CLOUD ATLAS
“The key is not to take CLOUD ATLAS too seriously. If you try to invest yourself in the sci-fi framework or the Wachowski-esque philosophical theory, you’ll be too busy chewing on sand rather than eating up the goodies.” – Norm Schrager, Meet In The Lobby
“This is not just a movie. It’s a cinematic mural, and while its elements may sometimes clash a bit, the overall form is really rather lovely.” – Kilian Melloy, Kal’s Movie Blog
“The year’s most ambitious film, one that will divide critics as well as audiences. You will either be enthralled or bored beyond tears. Given its nearly three hour running time, you’d best be prepared.” – Daniel M. Kimmel, The Sci-Fi Movie Page
“As it took up residence in my memory, my relationship with this film simply grew. I liked CLOUD ATLAS when it ended. But by the next day, I had fallen in love.” – Greg Vellante, The Eagle Tribune
“It looks like the short segments were put together by an editor wearing a blind fold and watching it gives audiences the kind of motion sickness feeling one gets trying to read a book in a moving car.” – John Black, Boston Event Guide
“At first, the frequent jumping between time periods is a bit jarring, but it quickly becomes second nature as you get invested in each one of the individual stories.” – Evan Crean, Reel Recon
“Not just one of the best movies of the year, but one of the most ambitious and audicious in a year that has been big on ambitious and audacious.” – Bob Chipman, The Escapist
SMASHED
“Such an earnest little puddle of feel-good inspiration that I feel like an asshole for disliking it so much.” – Sean Burns, Philadelphia Weekly
“It is entirely daring in what it chooses to show, but rather tame in what it chooses to say.” – Greg Vellante, The Eagle Tribune
CHASING MAVERICKS
“A Lifetime movie with some actual life to it, lending tender observation to the idea that dreams are sitting out there waiting to be seized.” – Greg Vellante, The Eagle Tribune
“An acting range that seems more suited to pouting on the fashion runway than performing as a fully fledged character.” – John Black, Boston Event Guide
“A coming-of-age story which should end with the young boy becoming a young man. Unfortunately, fate had other ideas. As the old saying goes, God writes lousy theater.” – Daniel M. Kimmel, NorthShoreMovies.net
SILENT HILL: REVELATION
“It’s like watching a recording of someone else playing a video game. You have no control and you have nothing invested in the characters or the outcome.” – Daniel M. Kimmel, The Sci-Fi Movie Page
“It’s more of the same, on a cut-rate budget, without Gans’s atmospheric reverie.” – Brett Michel, The Boston Phoenix
“A full-on, visceral thrill ride that uses 3D technology to throw buckets of blood and gore at the audience with gleeful abandonment.” – John Black, Boston Event Guide
FUN SIZE
“Crud. Perfectly unpleasant fluff that offers a few good moments in a mess of horrible ones.” – Greg Vellante, The Eagle Tribune
“If your ‘tweens and young teens are into the offerings on Nickelodeon and Disney then they’ll enjoy this, but there is stuff that parents may find surprising and even disturbing.” – Daniel M. Kimmel, NorthShoreMovies.net
Lewin is the son of Polish émigrés who settled in Australia in his boyhood. Like O’Brien, Lewin suffered polio in childhood. He was left needing crutches, but Lewin is perfectly able to live an ordinary life; indeed, his life has extraordinary, given that the former lawyer switched careers and moved to England to become a successful filmmaker.
Another fine actor featured in the film is William H. Macy, who plays O’Brien’s priest, Father Brendan. At first, Macy’s man of the cloth –who is “a Berkeley hippie priest,” Lewin notes — is deeply troubled by the idea of intercourse with a sex therapist. But as Father Brendan gazes at the crucifix hanging above the altar of his church, he seems to hear an answer from The Divine: “Go for it,” he tells O’Brien.
techniques.’ ”