Day: September 17, 2011

This is an odd movie. I went assuming it was a smarter, cooler Fast and the Furious, and there are a couple of good driving scenes. But it is primarily an exercise in backward-looking noir, trying to re-create the look of 1970s driving movies, perhaps with a bit of Point Blank thrown in. The driver is Ryan Gosling, who is never given a name, and is practically affectless, with barely a change of expression except for a slight smile when he is around Irene (Carey Mulligan). Continue reading Drive

Another enjoyable, sleek, highly competent, and controlled film from Soderbergh. [Apparently he is giving up directing to devote himself to painting. There was a trailer for his next movie, a good-looking action thriller with female lead, entitled Haywire, before Contagion.] Contagion examines the progress and response to a global pandemic from the outbreak through about nine months out, by which time a vaccine has been found and the virus is more or less under control. Continue reading Contagion