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MOVIE REVIEW: The Kite Runner (2007)

 The Kite Runner is proof that A-list stars and a big budget can’t compete with good old-fashioned storytelling.

Working from Khaled Hosseini’s popular novel and employing a cast of virtual unknowns, director Marc Forster has created a vibrant and emotional film about friends, family, honour, and redemption.

Afghan-born Amir (Khalid Abdalla) is a successful writer living in America with a loving wife – he’s celebrating the publication of his latest novel when an old acquaintance calls him from his native country asking him to return, and intoning, “There is a way to be good again.”

MOVIE REVIEW: Atonement (2007)

I’ll say right off the bat that I’m not a die-hard Ian McEwan fan. Before Atonement I’d only read one of his other novels, Saturday, and confess I found it a bit of a slog to get through. After recently seeing the film trailer, however, I thought I’d give the British scribe another go. And this time he didn’t disappoint – Atonement is a brilliant story, full of richly drawn characters and descriptions, and turns of phrase that’d make any writer green with envy.

A daunting task then to take that beloved and bestselling work of fiction and translate it onto the big screen, while retaining the story’s intimacy and depth. Talented young British director Joe Wright, who was behind the lens for 2005’s critical hit Pride and Prejudice, turns out to be the right man for the job, admirably and faithfully turning page to picture in one scene after the next.

MOVIE REVIEW: Before The Devil Knows You're Dead (2007)

Is Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead a great film, masterfully directed and acted? You bet.

Would I want to see it again? Not on your life.

Director Sidney Lumet’s incredible return to form is one hell of a gruelling experience for the viewer – and it doesn’t let up until the credits roll. It reminds me, in terms of how I felt leaving the theatre, of In The Bedroom (which also happens to feature Marisa Tomei) - appreciative of the quality, but as though I’d been slapped across the face.

Lumet plumbs the depths of humanity in this family drama about two down-on-their-luck brothers who decide to knock over a mom-and-pop jewellery store in order to escape their financial woes. Thing is, it’s their own parents’ shop they’re robbing – and when things go terribly wrong it sets into motion a chain of increasingly tragic and terrible events.

MOVIE REVIEW: Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007)

Nine years ago, when director Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth was released, its historical inaccuracies and soap opera-ish tendencies were overlooked on account of a brave and brilliant performance by a then-unknown Aussie: Cate Blanchett. She was robbed of the Best Actress Oscar, losing to Shakespeare in Love star Gwyneth Paltrow.

Paltrow’s co-star Judi Dench won the supporting actress Academy Award that year, playing an older Queen Elizabeth I. It’s that same era of rule that Blanchett now takes on in Elizabeth: The Golden Age, once again brought to the screen by Kapur. The immensely talented actress has since won her Oscar (for The Aviator) and proven she’s one of the finest actresses in Hollywood today – doubters should check out her recent performance in Notes on a Scandal or her surprising turn as Bob Dylan in I’m Not There.

MOVIE REVIEW: Once (2007)

I hesitate to call Once a musical for fear of scaring off those who hate the genre. The truth is, John Carney’s film about two people who meet by chance on the streets of Dublin and connect through their love of songwriting is about as far from big budget Hollywood spectacles like Chicago and Dreamgirls as you can get.

It all starts when a busker (Glen Hansard of Irish band The Frames) is approached by a woman (Czech singer-songwriter Marketa Irglova) on the street who wants to know who he’s singing so fervently about. His former flame, he reveals. They get to talking – he finds out she’s an immigrant from the Czech Republic making a living by selling flowers and cleaning houses - and after hitting it off agree to meet up again.

MOVIE REVIEW: Talk to Me (2007)

“I’ll tell it to the hot, I’ll tell it to the cold, I’ll tell it to the young, I’ll tell it to the old, I don’t want no laughin’, I don’t want no cryin’, and most of all, no signifyin’. Achtt! This is Petey Greene’s Washington.”

So went Ralph Waldo “Petey” Greene's signature signoff on his groundbreaking television program “Petey Greene’s Washington.”

I must confess that before seeing Talk To Me, the just-out biopic starring Don Cheadle, I hadn’t heard of Petey Greene. What a life this guy had. He went from serving time in prison for armed robbery, where he honed his DJing skills over the facility’s PA system, to hosting a trailblazing, tell-it-like-it-is radio program, and eventually a television show, that resonated with black America during the civil rights era. He shared a stage with James Brown, ate dinner at the White House, and when he died of cancer in 1984 at age 53 there were (as the movie tells it) more people at his funeral in D.C., 10,000, than any non-elected official.