Wedding Crashers
The Skeleton Key
Take My Eyes
Wedding Crashers
This is an utterly silly, but genuinely funny and well-formulated comedy. The Vince Vaughn/Owen Wilson line-up is a successful one. Vaughn is a frantically over-the-top sex-addict, but somehow too charming in this particular role to become annoying. Wilson, in contrast, delivers a more down-to-earth performance as the heartbroken looser, sincerely in love. These two confident actors, part of Hollywood's current comic elite, really know what buttons to push to make us laugh. Everyone seems to be having a blast on screen, and the movie manages to convey the fun to the audience. The dirty language and the endless rude jokes don't change the fact that the movie is good-hearted and will make a fine date flick. Deep down, it's really a very romantic film.
1/2( Julie Vinten )
John Beckwith (Owen Wilson) and Jeremy Grey (Vince Vaughn) are best friends who are expert and seasoned wedding gatecrashers. They love to mingle with guests, gorge on free food, get drunk on free booze and, above all, take advantage of the heady atmosphere to seduce women. But their dream life gets turned on its head when they crash the grandiose wedding of Treasury Secretary William Cleary's (Christopher Walken) daughter and end up falling for his other two unhitched daughters. "Wedding Crashers" is certainly enjoyable and has some truly inspired moments thanks to an in-form Vaughn and the ever-excellent Walken. There is a darkly satirical streak beneath the film's happy veneer which counterbalances some of its adolescent excesses, and the institution of marriage takes a good beating before certain knots and subplots predictably get tied.
( Tim Ochser )
The Skeleton Key
"The Skeleton Key" is a rather ineffective mystery/horror-flick. The good actors' potentials are terribly underused - it's a mystery how they got John Hurt to do a role that only amounts to about five lines of dialogue and a lot of desperate rolling of the eyes. Kate Hudson tries, and it isn't her fault that the rest of the cast look like they don't really want to be in the movie. Since the narrative is formulaic and stupid, the least we can ask for is to be thoroughly scared out of our minds. A couple sequences have a spooky flavor to them, but the hoodoo-stuff mostly ends up more silly than scary. And it's truly disappointing when the surprise finale turns out to be no surprise at all.
1/2( Julie Vinten )
This whodunit is a hoodoodunit, as it turns out. Set in a swampy and pseudo-gothic New Orleans, Caroline Ellis (Kate Hudson) takes on the job of caring for stroke victim Ben Devereaux (John Hurt) in his huge and rundown Colonial-era mansion, under the suspicious gaze of his busy-body wife Violet (Gena Rowlands). But when doors start mysteriously slamming, Caroline plays detective and uncovers a lively local tradition of Hoodoo, which is like Voodoo, but only more Harmful and Horrible. While the story itself is pretty standard stuff, the film is well-shot and intelligently directed. Hudson gives an impressive performance along with the rest of the cast, helping to make this a better than average thriller. The tension is nicely mounted right up until the satisfyingly surprising, if somewhat stupid, finale.
( Tim Ochser )
Take My Eyes
Drawing a remarkably multifaceted picture of an abusive marriage, the Spanish movie "Take My Eyes" ("Te doy mis ojos") is a drama that is very straightforward, very real and very tough to watch. Through psychologically resonant and truthful storytelling, the movie goes deep into the psyche of the abuser and the abused with an impressive understanding of both. The feature is excellently cast, and the acting performances hit the mark in every scene - the convincing acting adds to the painfully realistic feeling of the film. This is an excellently executed movie with fine narrative flow. The admirably simple story is told in a composed and delicate way that never lets the drama turn into pretentious melodrama. "Take My Eyes" is a small movie that makes a powerful impression.
( Julie Vinten )
This outstanding Spanish film is a brilliant, subtle and deeply moving study into the psychology of male violence and how it unleashes itself in the privacy of the home. When Pilar (Laia Marull) leaves her abusive husband Antonio (Luis Tosar), taking their young son and a few belongings with her, he begs her to come back. To show that he is willing to confront his problem, he goes into group counselling and things seem to improve. But their domestic life hinges on his ever-fragile moods, and the smallest annoyance threatens to set him off again. The lead actors are simply astonishing in this unbearably honest, tender and intelligent film and their finely nuanced facial expressions convey more than an entire script of most Hollywood dramas.
( Tim Ochser )
