Quick & Dirty Reviews

The Road (5 out of 5) 
It may surprise you to learn that The Road is actually a love story between a father and his son, albeit a bleak and hauntingly raw post-apocalyptic paternal love story. The Road contains one of the very best child performances ever committed to celluloid. Rarely can such a young actor convey such power and emotional range as Kodi Smit-McPhee and he does so at every turn. The ever reliable Viggo Mortensen gives his usual 110% in selling the absolute heart-breaking and demoralizing lengths this father is willing to go to protect his son in this savage and depressing new world. The Road is a movie with very little plot; it is a movie about circumstance. You follow this oftentimes silent father and son duo as they trek through this awful wasteland and you would still be hard-pressed to call this movie boring. This film is a masterpiece in minimalistic film-making, with long silent scenes of intense suspense and an apocalypse that is wholly believable as these two stumble upon abandoned homes, collapsed highways and legitimate concerns of cannibalists. Yet through all this doom and gloom the real message is one of hope, courage and the good in all of us. It's a wonderful film that may be too depressing for some viewers, but powerful performances and an original atmosphere make it worth the two hours of grey skies and the depravity of man.

Magic Mike (4 out of 5)

A sharp script and naturalistic performances make what could have been a shallow sex appeal movie into a interesting look into the lives of Tampa, Florida male strippers. Channing Tatum gives another in a quickly amassing collection of great performances, and as a former stripper himself he shows his talent in each of his routines. Matthew McConaughey is also fantastic as an aging stripper and owner of the club whose time in the limelight is fading but is desperate to keep it. Magic Mike directed by anyone other than Steven Soderbergh would have turned into something closer resembling a Step-Up movie, instead Soderbergh coxes real drama and genuine laughs that tears down any reservations male viewers may have. Soderbergh brings his usual deft directorial hands, allowing actors to improvise and keeping the camera on them longer than a typical scene to capture more grounded interactions. If you aren't confident enough in your sexuality and the thought of watching a male stripper movie worries you let me simply say there is no male nudity in this film though there is a fair share of female nudity, take that as you will, I simply think its incredibly ironic. Magic Mike is simply great film, don't let any predisposition sway your opinion before checking this movie out. Slightly left of center but still an engaging and entertaining trip through the stripping culture with its hundreds of cheering female screams highs and drug overdosing and overly competitive lows.