Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with an overflowing net of reviews for your enjoyment. Lots of good catches below, including more opinions on THE MACHINIST, ALFIE, FINDING NEVERLAND, SAW and KINSEY. Of these films, the only one I've seen is SAW, but I have lines on seeing ALFIE, KINSEY and quite a few others... so keep an eye on the site for my blathering ramblings on those and more! First up is a gaggle of mini-reviews from Pappy, followed up with another opinion on ALFIE! Enjoy!

So, it’s been an eventful week here in Beantown.

The Sox are going to the World Series, and I’ve seen four unreleased movies in as many days.

A few weeks ago I saw The Machinist with director Brad Anderson in attendance.  Christian Bale’s performance is cryptic and powerful, what you would expect from him.  What I didn’t expect was the literal starvation he put himself through to make himself weigh 120 lbs.  I won’t review the film since it’s being released today, but Mr. Anderson told us about the lengths Bale put himself through for the part, how they filmed the entire movie in Spain (Barcelona), and how he was influenced by such stories as Dostoevsky’s (one of whose volumes appears in the film).

But moving on

Alfie starring Jude Law.  The story of a womanizer (womanizing, of course), and how he tries to break his habits but ultimately can’t.  Law’s performance is charismatic and touching, as he talks to the audience irreverently while characters around him don’t notice.  It’s an upbeat romantic comedy, but without the romance (since there are so many women, Marisa Tomei and Susan Sarandon among them). 

Kinsey concerns itself with a researcher in the 1950s (? The movie was never clear on the exact dates) who publishes the first national study on sexual behavior.  Shot on an independent budget, the film stars Liam Neeson in a great performance as the quirky scientist and Laura Linney as his wife.  The movie covers a lot of ground, and is structured after Kinsey’s own sexual interview, the process by which they take data from their subjects.  The film, unlike A Beautiful Mind, doesn’t shy away from some of the more controversial aspects of his life, but not being a biographer of Kinsey, I can’t vouch for how accurate it was.

Director Bill Condon (Gods and Monsters) was in attendance and talked about making the movie, and how he didn’t want to curtail important details that wouldn’t be so popular.  The film is hysterical in its moments of sexual naïveté, especially in terms of the students Kinsey teaches in his Marriage course, but takes on serious tones when Kinsey’s home life is threatened, his funds are withdrawn, and the interview process takes him into the realms of genuinely evil people.

Finding Neverland has been hailed as Johnny Depp’s Oscar nod.  He’ll probably get nominated, although I doubt the performance is strong enough to warrant a win.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great sentimental movie about a struggling author trying to come up with a play to save his reputation, and finds as a muse Kate Winslet as a widow of three boys, who inspire him to write Peter Pan.  It’s a cute movie that will get your date’s balling by the end, and some of whose sequences are so surreal they’re beautiful (watch for the pirate ship).

Producer Richard Gladstein was there to field questions, and brought up some interesting trivia I hadn’t known.  Initially completed in 2003, the film was delayed because of the release of Peter Pan.  And since that film had the rights to the play, the reenactments of the theater scenes in Finding Neverland had to get Sony’s permission to be admitted into the film.  In short, Sony gave them permission if they would release the film after Peter Pan, hence the later release of Neverland.

Finally, last night I attended a screening of Saw, the new horror film starring Cary Elwes and Danny Glover.  Don’t believe the trailers when the film leads you to believe the film is about the cops chasing the Jigsaw killer.  The film is more of a montage, starting off as Dr. Lawrence Gordon and Adam, two strangers, are both trapped in a room with a third dead body, and they reminisce about how they got there and how it looks like one of the acts of the Jigsaw Killer.  The film jumps between the Doctor’s experiences, the cops investigation, and his home life, all the while adding a puzzle-game dynamic into the room, as the prisoners find new tools to play a sadistic game their tormenter has in store for them.  Seeing it with a college crowd, I’m convinced that some of the heavy drama was compromised by an overly giggly audience, but looking back, some of the acting is horrible.  But if you like scary movies, puzzle movies (think McGuyver stuck in a game of Russian Roulette and you get the idea) , and thrillers, this movie will throw enough twists at you to keep you entertained, and the last ten minutes are definitely worth the price of admission (in my case, free; would I pay to see this? Hmmmm)

Anyways, use as much or as little as you want of the above snippets.

Pappy

Now with another, albeit similar, look at ALFIE! This one looks to be a winner!