NOW PLAYING
Capsule reviews of first-run films now showing at Calgary theatres
Anna Karenina out of five
Joe Wright’s stylized remounting of the Leo Tolstoy story of infidelity is sumptuous, although its artificial theatricality removes us from the story’s emotions. Keira Knightley is beautiful and gawky as the unhappily married Anna, but Aaron Taylor-Johnson seems too feckless for her lover Vronsky.
Arbitrage
Richard Gere is fantastic as a man barely keeping his life together. You can almost see the veins throbbing in his head as he tries to outwit, or at least outrun, his various accusers, creditors and family members, including his frosty wife (Susan Sarandon).
Deadfall
Deadfall is one of those rare films that is difficult to describe, mostly because it’s hard to tell what it’s trying to be. Starring Eric Bana, Olivia Wilde, Kris Kristofferson, Sissy Spacek and Treat Williams.
Flight
This Robert Zemeckis feature offers a spectacular start to what amounts to a survival story. Flight features Denzel Washington as a commercial pilot struggling to come clean after a tragic crash.
Hitchcock
Movies about the movies can be tediously self-indulgent. How can they not? They’re staring into the mirror and looking back at their glossy reflections, and feeling pretty sexy about what they see. The Hobbit: An Unexpected
Journey ½
The first part of a trilogy of films based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s children’s novel runs 169 minutes. It’s a long haul for a slim volume, but after a slow start director Peter Jackson fills the screen with imaginative creatures and exciting battles.
Killing Them Softly
Brad Pitt stars as a befuddled enforcer detoured by incompetent sidekicks, a corporate liaison and a community lacking criminal expertise. Despite the blood, guts and graphic language, this Andrew Dominik movie has tons of style.
Life of Pi
Oscar winner Ang Lee adapts the like-named bestselling novel by Yann Martel to the big screen in stunning, high-def 3-D. While the movie never works as well as we might want it to, Lee still manages to conjure enough cinematic magic to pull off this heavy mix of soul-searching and action-survival
Lincoln
Daniel Day-Lewis is persuasive as The Great Emancipator in Steven Spielberg’s high-quality biopic about the last few months of the U.S. president’s life. There’s a tone of reverence even as Lincoln is shown making underhanded deals to free the slaves, political machinations that give the film its intrigue.
The Master
Paul Thomas Anderson creates an emotionally tense ode to postwar fragmentation in this riveting story of a sailor seeking his place in peacetime. Joaquin Phoenix is predictably unpredictable.
Midnight’s Children
Deepa Mehta takes on Salman Rushdie’s Booker Prize-winning novel about the birth of an independent India and a boy who can conjure the voice of his generation through his unnaturally large nose.
Pitch Perfect
A Glee-type musical with a more comic sensibility. Anna Kendrick plays a college student who joins an a cappella singing group that’s trying to defeat the male team.
Playing for Keeps
A silly romantic comedy with Gerard Butler as a retired soccer star who attracts all the wives, including those played by Uma Thurman and Catherine ZetaJones. But he’s wants his ex, played by Jessica Biel. Watching him fend off their advances is more humiliating than funny.
Rise of the Guardians
The wrapping is all primary colours, but beneath this slick, shiny and frequently frantic piece of holiday fantasy is a deeper message about the importance of personal responsibility. Jack Frost struggles with his new duty as a Guardian — a supernatural force that cares for all children in exchange for faith. The movie fails to find enough heart to move us but it will dazzle the eyes.
Searching for Sugarman
The film appears to be documenting the story of folksinger Rodriguez, and little else, but Swedish director Malik Bendjelloul captures giant swaths of 20thcentury history in the process. Silver Linings Playbook Bradley Cooper stars as a man who returns from a mental institution and tries to resume both his life and his marriage. Yet his wife has a restraining order against him and he’s not entirely stable. Pat (Cooper) is a raging loner who may or may not be redeemed by the love of a pretty good, but not entirely predictable, woman played by Jennifer Lawrence. Director David O. Russell sells the screwball side, and holds up the dramatic side as well.
Skyfall ½ Daniel Craig returns as 007 in this Sam Mendes-directed thriller that stars Javier Bardem as the baddie. When the names of embedded agents fall into the wrong hands, James Bond must find a way to retrieve the information. The only problem is, the villain might be working on the inside. Highly entertaining and Craig is compelling. Twilight: Breaking Dawn — Part 2 The last instalment in the five-film franchise finds Bella (Kristen Stewart) learning how to be a vampire, while the evil Volturi threaten her half-immortal newborn. Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner return as vampire and werewolf, respectively. A treat for the fans, at least.
Wreck-It Ralph ½ A 3-D animated film about a video game villain (voiced by John C. Reilly) who wants to be a hero. He migrates to another game — a children’s candy land fantasy — and helps a little girl (Sarah Silverman) find herself.