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Arts & Entertainment

Weekend Movie Forecast: <em>Stone</em> Vs. <em>Life As We Know It</em>

By

Robert Horan

Published Oct 8, 2010

Modified Oct 8, 2010

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So according to Hollywood mathematics, the more great actors you shove into a movie the better that movie will be. According to the public at large, however, this is rarely the case. A decade or so ago, they assembled three of the greatest actors of their three respective generations (Brando, De Niro, Norton) and threw them in a little film called The Score with Ms. Piggy at the helm. Things didn't turn out so well, nor did they when De Niro and Pacino got together again in Righteous Kill. Nevertheless, De Niro is once again teaming back up with Norton (who although a great actor, may or may not be relevant anymore) for the movie Stone. Norton plays a convicted arsonist who attempts to manipulate his parole officer (De Niro) into securing his parole by putting his hot wife (Milla Jovovich) into the mix. It's amazing that such a nerd could play criminals so convincingly and make a career out of it.Reviews have been mixed to slightly positive, with Scott Tobias from The A.V. Club saying: "There are crimes and there are sins, and while society demands atonement for the former, many terrible sins are perfectly legal and atonement is up to the sinner. Writer-director John Curran explores these questions of official and personal morality in Stone, an intelligent but brutally portentous drama in the style of his 2004 marital drama We Don’t Live Here Anymore. He also gets a real, committed performance out of Robert De Niro, who’s spent much of the last decade lazily mugging his way through Meet The Parents comedies and genre stinkers like Hide And Seek and Righteous Kill—all of which suggest either good roles for him are limited or he simply doesn’t care like the De Niro of old."Curran resists Stone’s genre elements to his peril, suffocating the drama with a tone of high seriousness and unnecessary elements, like an omnipresent AM religious talk show that spells out themes that are already apparent. He doesn’t trust the story or his actors to bring the film across—and worst of all, he doesn’t trust the audience."

 

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By

Robert Horan

Published Oct 8, 2010

Modified Oct 8, 2010

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Click on the film stills for more details and reviews on this week's new releases and repertory screenings, which include: Stone, Life as We Know It, Secretariat, It's Kind of a Funny Story, Inside Job, Marwencol, Tamara Drewe, Nowhere Boy, Taxi Driver, Trick 'r Treat, To Die Like a Man, and Robert Jay Lifton: Nazi Doctors.

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