Thursday, February 25, 2010

Movie reviews with Conor Nolan

Everybody's Fine is actually a remake of Giuseppe Tornatore's Stanno Tutti Bene and follows a widower who embarks on an impromptu road trip to reconnect with each of his grown children only to discover that their lives are far from picture perfect. At the heart of Everybody's Fine is the theme of family and physical and emotional distances travelled to bring the members back together.

An all star cast (including Robert DeNiro, Kate Beckinsale, Sam Rockwell and Drew Barrymore) feature in this bitter sweet comedy about a widower reconnecting with his grown up children starts really well with DeNiro in sparkling form. But 30 minutes into the movie we are literally swimming in a sea of treacle — this is the worst piece of turgid schmaltz I have had the misfortune to sit through in ages.


Kirk Jones (Waking Ned Devine) directs and what a mess he makes of it — the movie lacks a heart and poor old DeNiro has to cope with a terribly bad script that never deserved to see the light of day never mind a cinema screen.

Needless to say American audiences were none too impressed when the movie was released last year and it suffered consequently at the box office. There are better ways of spending your money — buying a ticket for this rubbish is not one of them.

The only thing that saved me from walking out was Kate Beckinsale's house in the movie — stunning!LEAP YEAR

American comedies set in Ireland starring English and American actors normally make me very nervous terrible accents and awful caricatures of The Emerald Isle are normally par for the course. Think PS I Love You for example. But Leap Year sets the standard in being quite simply the worst comedy set in Ireland I have ever seen I mean this sincerely. When their four year anniversary passes without a marriage proposal, Anna (Amy Adams) decides to take matters into her own hands.

Investing in an Irish tradition that allows women to propose to men on February 29, Anna decides to follow her boyfriend Jeremy (Adam Scott) to Dublin and get down on one knee herself. But airplanes, weather and fate leave Anna stranded on the West of Ireland, and she must enlist the help of handsome and surly Declan (Matthew Goode) to get her to Dublin.

As Anna and Declan bicker on their journey to Dublin, they discover that the road to love can take you to very unexpected places. Goode's Irish accent is woeful, Adam's is truly terrible in yet another bad role and the whole thing portrays Ireland and Irish hospitality in a terribly bad light which I was personally affronted by. So if a pal suggests going to see Leap Year — you know what to say.

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