Gunman for hire: George Clooney plays a man trapped by his vocation in ‘The American’

By Matthew E. Milliken MEMwrites.wordpress.com July 13, 2015 On a recent visit to a second-hand book-, CD- and DVD-store, I browsed the $2 DVD bin and noticed a movie called The American. It was from 2010 and it starred George Clooney, apparently playing a(n American) hit man on the run in Italy. I snapped it up. The movie itself is […]

George Clooney’s arty party can’t quite come together in tale of ‘The Monuments Men’ of World War II

By Matthew E. Milliken MEMwrites.wordpress.com Feb. 8, 2014 A sequence in The Monuments Men captures the key problem with the new feature directed, co-written by and starring George Clooney. As sculptor Walter Garfield (John Goodman) and Jean Claude Clermont (Jean Dujardin) are questioning a clergyman about the fate of historic artwork stolen by the Nazis, a sniper […]

Short takes: ‘Michael Clayton’ and ‘Silence’

By Matthew E. Milliken MEMwrites.wordpress.com Feb. 29, 2023 One of the best movies that I’ve watched recently was Michael Clayton, the 2007 drama starring George Clooney that straddles the territory of corporate thriller, legal drama and character study. Clooney is the title character, an attorney at a prominent New York law firm who specializes in […]

Short takes: ‘The Illusionist,’ ‘From Dusk Till Dawn’ and ‘Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone’

By Matthew E. MillikenMEMwrites.wordpress.comJune 10, 2021 Author’s note: Every so often, I label one of these “Short takes” posts as “Quick takes.” That was originally the case here; I caught and corrected the mistake a week after the item was first published. MEM Every so often, the movie industry will develop multiple movies featuring very similar […]

Robert Zemeckis’s thrilling ‘Allied’ tells the story of two married World War II spies who may not have managed to come in from the cold

By Matthew E. Milliken MEMwrites.wordpress.com Feb. 27, 2018 Robert Zemeckis’s 2016 World War II movie, Allied, is a terrific thriller starring Brad Pitt as a Royal Air Force spy who learns that his wife may be a Nazi mole. The film begins in 1942 in an isolated stretch of desert outside Casablanca as Max Vatan (Pitt) parachutes […]

‘Money Monster’ explores what happens when terrorism, business journalism and live TV collide

By Matthew E. Milliken MEMwrites.wordpress.com June 15, 2016 Money Monster is a competent, modest thriller about a terrorist — sorry, a white man beset by financial difficulties and other troubles — who hijacks a live TV show. The show is called Money Monster; its host is the fatuous Lee Gates (George Clooney), who likes being on television […]

Soderbergh’s eccentric ‘The Limey’ explores fatherhood from the perspective of a bereaved veteran criminal

By Matthew E. Milliken MEMwrites.wordpress.com Aug. 22, 2015 The Limey, the 1999 crime drama directed by the prolific Steven Soderbergh, is a quirky movie about a British criminal who visits Los Angeles to investigate the death of his daughter. Terence Stamp stars as Wilson, who flies to the States fresh off a nine-year prison stint for armed robbery. […]

In the symbolism-laden ‘Solaris,’ Steven Soderbergh explores a remote corner of space where the past is strangely present

By Matthew E. Milliken MEMwrites.wordpress.com July 22, 2015 Solaris is a work that I’ve engaged repeated over the course of my lifetime. The original book, by the great Polish author Stanislaw Lem, was penned in 1961. I’ve always held it in great regard, although my understanding of it is rather limited. The premise is simple enough: Something has gone grievously […]

Paradise and the apocalypse: Utopian visions in ‘Fury Road,’ ‘Tomorrowland’ and ‘Elysium’

By Matthew E. Milliken MEMwrites.wordpress.com June 8, 2015 After seeing Mad Max: Fury Road this week, I couldn’t help but be reminded of two other films that toy with the idea of utopia: Brad Bird’s recent movie, Tomorrowland, and Neill Blomkamp’s 2013 feature film, Elysium. (Dear reader, please beware: There be spoilers ahead!)

Brad Bird’s ‘Tomorrowland’ asks viewers to rally behind an optimistic, simplistic utopian concept

By Matthew E. Milliken MEMwrites.wordpress.com May 25, 2015 Brad Bird’s entertaining new movie, Tomorrowland, pits optimism vs. cynicism. Guess which wins? Tomorrowland is a Hollywood movie, so the answer shouldn’t surprise you much. More specifically, it’s a Disney Studios movie based on a Disney theme park area, so the answer really shouldn’t surprise you. When Frank Marshall (Thomas Robinson) was a […]

Nobody knows his face, but everybody knows his name (and story): Revisiting Christopher Nolan’s ‘Batman Begins’

By Matthew E. Milliken MEMwrites.wordpress.com Dec. 6, 2014 Everyone knows the basic setup of the world of Batman, one of the great comic-book heroes. Heck, millions of people could recite it in their sleep. It goes like this: Bruce Wayne, the only son of billionaires, was orphaned by a gunman at an early age and raised by Alfred […]

Astronauts in peril: ‘Gravity’ soars through danger above the Earth

By Matthew E. Milliken MEMwrites.wordpress.com Oct. 8, 2013 As the new feature film Gravity opens — Actually, before I complete that sentence, a caveat. I walked into the screening about 10 minutes after the scheduled start. I’m accustomed to the lights first going down 10 minutes after the ostensible start time, which is followed by one […]