http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/index.html http://media.miamiherald.com/images/logos/rss_sitelogo.gif http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/index.html 140 25 News, sports and entertainment from MiamiHerald.com en-us Copyright 2009 MiamiHerald.com Rene Rodriguez 60 Sun, 08 Nov 2009 12:19:02 EST http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss McClatchy Interactive's PubSys miamifeedback@miamiherald.com http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1320508.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1320508.html Sun, 08 Nov 2009 01:00 EST BIG SCREEN 2012 (PG-13) -- Disaster magnet Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow) returns to destroy our planet -- again. John Cusack, Woody Harrelson, Thandie Newton and Amanda Peet are among the humans trying to make sense of the impending apocalypse. Remember when Irwin Allen made those star-studded disaster flicks in the 1970s? Those were awesome. Emmerich's, not so much. But they sure look awesome. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1317462.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1317462.html Fri, 06 Nov 2009 01:00 EST No one can definitely say 1959's North By Northwest is Alfred Hitchcock's best movie -- how to choose? -- but from first frame to last, it may well be his most entertaining. The first of Hitchcock's pictures to appear on the Blu-ray format (Warner Home Video, $35), the film has been given a $1 million restoration, and to say it looks utterly fantastic on high-definition -- one of the most astounding Blu-ray transfers to date -- is probably an understatement. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1315608.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1315608.html Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:00 EST Filmmaker Richard Kelly's initial encounter with Richard Matheson's fiendish little short story Button, Button -- about a cash-strapped couple offered a million dollars to push a button on a box that will instantly cause someone they don't know to drop dead -- came not on the page, but on TV. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1318141.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1318141.html Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:00 EST Could there possibly be anything left to gain from yet another adaptation of Charles Dickens' tale about crabby old Ebenezer Scrooge and his life-changing encounter with three ghosts on Christmas Eve? In the case of Disney's A Christmas Carol, the answer is a surprising, resounding yes -- at least so far as the IMAX 3D version goes. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1317455.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1317455.html Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:00 EST ''More of this is true than you would believe,'' warns a title card at the start of The Men Who Stare at Goats, although the ever-reliable ''I know this sounds crazy, but . . .'' would have worked just as well. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1317458.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1317458.html Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:00 EST How do you pad out a six-page short story that strives to be nothing more than a clever little morality tale into a feature-length film? By throwing in lots and lots of stuff -- practically everything but zombies. Check that: We've got two hours to fill here. Bring on the zombies, too! http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1308412.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1308412.html Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:00 EDT Everything about An Education, the story of a 16-year-old girl's affair with a 30-year-old man in London in 1962, comes together in a way that gives the movie the feel of an instant classic. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1308424.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1308424.html Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:00 EDT BIG SCREEN The Box (PG-13): -- After the spectacular failure of his ambitious second film Southland Tales, writer-director Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko) goes the simpler, high-concept route with this thriller adapted from a tiny Richard Matheson short story, about a married couple (Cameron Diaz and James Marsden) given a wooden box. Push its button, and you become instantly wealthy -- but someone, somewhere, drops dead. Would you do it? Come on, you know you would. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1307182.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1307182.html Fri, 30 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT A fiendishly clever twist on the ''evil child'' genre of horror films, Orphan (Warner Home Entertainment, $29 DVD, $34 Blu-ray) was unceremoniously dumped into theaters this summer with little promotion. But the movie, produced by Joel Silver's Dark Castle Entertainment, which specializes in modest little B-pictures (House on Haunted Hill, Ghost Ship), deserved better. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1305908.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1305908.html Thu, 29 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT Jenny (Carey Mulligan), a 16-year-old growing up in the London suburb of Twickenham in 1961, is always the first in class to raise her hand with the answer. She is fluent in French and studying Latin; she plays the cello and is familiar with all the pre-Raphaelite artists (Rossetti and Burne-Jones are her favorites; Holman Hunt, not so much). http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1305912.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1305912.html Thu, 29 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT Early on in Francis Ford Coppola's shimmering, mesmerizing Tetro, a young man on his way to meet up with his eccentric older brother walks down a stark, shadowy street, past a graffiti-defaced wall. The setting is Buenos Aires, not Tulsa, and the score is grand and symphonic, not percussive and spare. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1296956.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1296956.html Sun, 25 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT Michael Jackson: This Is It (PG) -- High School Musical director Kenny Ortega, who was collaborating with the singer on a series of London concerts, culls a concert film and cinematic memorial (with some sequences in 3D) from the hundreds of hours of footage taped during Jackson's rehearsals for the shows. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1294358.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1294358.html Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT The buzz on the film festival circuit is that the dearth of independent filmmaking caused by the recession has made festival programming increasingly difficult. But at the 2009 Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival, the show will go on. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1294382.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1294382.html Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT A textbook example of how trying to please everyone ends up pleasing no one, Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant is a Frankenstein's monster of a movie, all stitches and seams and disparate parts. Based on the first three volumes of Darren Shan's 12-book series, the movie was intended to be a franchise launcher -- a cross between Harry Potter and Twilight with a bit of comic-book pow and a smattering of gore thrown in to lure older teens. You can imagine how the Universal Pictures marketing department must have salivated over that pitch. How can it possibly miss, right? http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1293283.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1293283.html Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT ''Please. I need help,'' Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) pleads in A Serious Man, the 14th -- and best, and most heartfelt -- film by Joel and Ethan Coen. But there's no help to be found. Larry, dutiful husband, caring father, responsible college professor and all-around mensch living in Minnesota in 1967, is about to discover that everyone is out for himself, and woe to those who assume other people really care about you. Even God can't be bothered. He's busy, you know? http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1294353.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1294353.html Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT You don't have to be a fashionista to enjoy Coco Before Chanel, director Anne Fontaine's engrossing look at the life of Gabrielle ''Coco'' Chanel before she became a brand name. The movie is the latest entry in a growing wave of films revolving around the fashion industry (Ridley Scott is currently talking to Angelina Jolie for a movie about the Gucci empire). But Fontaine's primary focus is not clothing but people -- specifically the role of women in a strict, buttoned-down society that had clear delineations toward how they should look and behave. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1294365.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1294365.html Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT ''This is a new Miami!'' a partygoer tells Ivan (Adrian Mas), a Cuban balsero who recently arrived in the city. ''You can do whatever you want!'' Those are words Ivan takes to heart -- and then some. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1294357.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1294357.html Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT The inherent problem of parodying the blaxploitation genre -- crime films made in the early 1970s featuring African-American protagonists and often peppered with outrageous violence and sex -- is that the original movies still provide entertainment enough. A comedy that mocks the genre's excesses feels redundant. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1294360.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1294360.html Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT In the alternate, present-day reality of Timer, almost half the people in this country have a digital bracelet implanted in their wrists. The device, which looks like a little watch, counts down the minutes until you lay eyes on the soulmate with whom you are destined to spend the rest of your life in harmonious bliss. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1294361.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1294361.html Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT ''Seems weird for a woman to be driving a truck,'' 11-year-old Peter (Jimmy Bennett) remarks in Trucker, giving voice to the audience's thoughts. ''Yeah? Well what should I be doing?'' the defiantly independent Diane (Michelle Monaghan) shoots back. Previously relegated to the role of token love interest in movies such as Mission Impossible III, Gone Baby Gone and Eagle Eye, Monaghan demonstrates an untapped level of talent and skill in Trucker, tackling the difficult role of a woman who refuses to behave as societal norms dictate and has paid the price with loneliness and alienation. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1294359.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1294359.html Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT Attention all nerds and former high-school science-club members: Finally, there is a movie that shares your belief that chess should be a magnet for hot babes and sex. The French drama Queen to Play (Joueuse) is more eloquent and dignified -- here, chess serves as a gateway for self-discovery -- although the end result is still sex. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1293155.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1293155.html Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:02 EDT Even by Joel and Ethan Coen's bleak standards, A Serious Man would be an uncommonly pessimistic movie. The film tells the story of Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), a college professor in Minnesota in 1967 whose life is spiraling out of control. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1286154.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1286154.html Sun, 18 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT BIG SCREEN A Serious Man (R) -- Iconoclastic directors Joel and Ethan Coen (No Country for Old Men, Fargo) get personal with this comedy, loosely based on their middle-class Jewish upbringing, about a beleaguered college professor (Michael Stuhlbarg) who seeks advice from three rabbis on how to get control of his topsy-turvy life. As funny and bleak as anything the Coens have ever made, but without all the distancing stylistic tricks and irony. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1283888.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1283888.html Fri, 16 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT Ten years in the making, Trey Parker and Matt Stone have finally made good on their promise to record a commentary track for South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut. The only catch is that the track is exclusive to the new Blu-ray release of the film (Paramount Home Entertainment, $30), and the movie's crude animation doesn't benefit much from the format's higher resolution. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1283683.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1283683.html Thu, 15 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT Ten sentences, 338 words: That is the entirety of Maurice Sendak's seminal 1963 children's book <I>Where the Wild Things Are</I>, about a little boy who disappears into a jungle of his imagination populated by monsters. For four decades, the slim tome ranked high among Hollywood's list of unfilmable books, mostly because there wasn't enough to the tale to fill out an entire feature film. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1283666.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1283666.html Thu, 15 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT When Peter Finch got fed up with the system in Network, he took his anger to the TV airwaves and yelled, ``I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take this anymore!'' When Gerard Butler gets fed up with the system in Law Abiding Citizen, he growls, ``I'm gonna bring the whole diseased, corrupt temple down on your head,'' then exacts the sort of revenge that makes Charles Bronson look like a whiny little mama's boy. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1283668.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1283668.html Thu, 15 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT New York, I Love You, the second in an intended series of omnibus films (Paris, Je T'Aime was the first) called Cities of Love, is a collection of 11 shorts and one wrap-around segment, each directed by a different filmmaker in two days, that interweaves the backdrop of New York City into some sort of anecdote dealing with love. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1274621.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1274621.html Sun, 11 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT BIG SCREEN Law Abiding Citizen (R) -- An angry man (300's Gerard Butler) targets the Philadelphia prosecutor (Jamie Foxx) who orchestrated a plea bargain for the killer of his wife and daughter. Sometimes, words just aren't enough. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1272413.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1272413.html Fri, 09 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT You never forget your first time watching Takashi Miike's Audition: For some people, it is the first and last Miike picture they ever see. The wildly prolific Miike's best-known (and arguably most disciplined) work, the movie scandalized film festival audiences when it was shown around the world in 1999, and the terrific new two-disc Audition: Collector's Edition (Shout Factory, $25 DVD, $30 Blu-ray) celebrates the movie's 10th anniversary with a truckload of enlightening extras. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1272411.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1272411.html Thu, 08 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT Whenever Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau get a scene all to themselves in Couples Retreat (like a sequence in which they debate whether the act of fantasizing is tantamount to cheating on your wife), the movie's energy suddenly spikes, the dialogue becomes faster and punchier, and you remember how naturally funny and combustible these longtime friends are when they're together. They're so comfortable and familiar with each other, they seem to forget the camera is trained on them. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1272695.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1272695.html Thu, 08 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT If you're going to see Paranormal Activity, you must absolutely see it in a crowded theater, preferably this weekend, while the hype is at its peak and audiences are primed to be scared. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1263529.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1263529.html Sun, 04 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT BIG SCREEN Couples Retreat (PG-13) -- Four married couples (among them Vince Vaughn, Malin Akerman, Jason Bateman, Kristin Davis and Jon Favreau) vacation on an island that specializes in relationship counseling. More than specializes, actually: The therapy is mandatory. The cast is promising, and Favreau and Vaughn co-wrote the screenplay, so the movie should be funny. But the trailer looks deadly. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1260510.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1260510.html Fri, 02 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT One of the small experimental films (like Bubble and Full Frontal) director Steven Soderbergh often makes in between larger, big-budget projects, The Girlfriend Experience (Magnolia Home Entertainment, $27 DVD, $35 Blu-ray) was shot on the Red One digital camera filmmakers have been raving about and looks absolutely sensational on Blu-ray. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1260538.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1260538.html Thu, 01 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT The zombies of Zombieland don't shamble and shuffle like those of George A. Romero's seminal living-dead pictures. These flesheaters are of the run-and-sprint variety: They come at you with alarming speed, like the ones in the Dawn of the Dead remake or the virus-carriers in 28 Days Later. These zombies are post modern -- Undead Version 2.0; so is the movie. More comedy than horror show, Zombieland is the latest -- and arguably most irreverent -- attempt to wring laughs from a doom-and-gloom scenario in which the world has been overrun by the dead who have risen to eat the living. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1260504.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1260504.html Thu, 01 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT The kind of movie that makes the term ''formulaic crowd-pleaser'' seem like a good thing, Whip It is completely predictable from the first frame. It also is ridiculously, utterly entertaining. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1260537.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1260537.html Thu, 01 Oct 2009 01:00 EDT People who decry his films as self-serving exposes of previously known facts that only preach to the converted miss the overriding achievement of what makes Michael Moore important. For all his lack of objectivity and occasional fact-twisting, Moore takes on dauntingly complex subjects -- the health care industry, gun control, political abuse of power -- and turns them into hugely entertaining, provocative pictures. You don't necessarily have to agree with Moore to enjoy his movies, although agreeing helps. I can't imagine that too many Goldman Sachs board members are going to be fawning over Capitalism: A Love Story, in which Moore depicts our country's affair with capitalism as a romance gone horribly sour. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1251703.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1251703.html Sun, 27 Sep 2009 01:00 EDT When Woody Harrelson received a copy of the screenplay for Zombieland last year, he stuffed it into his duffel bag of unread scripts and promptly forgot about it. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1251708.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1251708.html Sun, 27 Sep 2009 01:00 EDT BIG SCREEN Capitalism: A Love Story (R) -- Michael Moore's most impassioned cinematic plea for activism yet explores the recent banking and housing collapse and the increasingly larger -- and more destructive -- role corporations have played in the U.S. government since the Reagan era. Moore does an impressive job of compressing a complicated subject into two highly watchable and entertaining hours, replete with man-on-the-street examples of the toll of the recession on the middle class. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1249042.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1249042.html Thu, 24 Sep 2009 01:00 EDT The new Fame is practically identical to Alan Parker's 1980 original -- I mean, it's the same damn movie -- except for all the parts with heart and humor and poignancy and soul and fun. The main difference between the two films -- aside from the fact the original was rated R, to reflect the reality of New York City teenagers, and the new one is rated PG, to reflect the reality of Hannah Montana and Jonas Brothers fan clubs -- can be summed up in one scene. http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1240157.html http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/columnists/rene-rodriguez/story/1240157.html Sun, 20 Sep 2009 01:00 EDT BIG SCREEN Fame (PG-13) -- Alan Parker's influential 1980 musical about the students at New York City's High School of Performing Arts gets a ''reimagining'' that includes a toning-down of the original R-rating to a High School Musical-friendly PG-13. Yes, New York has changed a lot since the 1980s. But still. Asher Book, Kristy Flores, Paul McGill and Naturi Naughton are among the talented kids who hope to live forever and learn how to fly high. This one is not being screened for critics until the last possible minute, so don't expect much.