The Skin I Live In: Spanish Rice
/Sickness squared! Perversion to the third power! If he were still around, Dante would have to invent another circle of hell for the creators of this pretentious pornography.
Read MoreOften been surprised by a movie after what a film critic said about it? Ever felt cheated out of big bucks on the recommendations of a punk 24-year-old? Or really loved the ones they panned? Well, you no longer need to feel out of step with the current movie review band. Different Drummer is for you. Read more about our take on the film world. And get ready to relive your favorite movies with the recipes that follow each review. You can find many other great recipes in Different Drummer’s own
Elizabethtown: Hash Brown Casserole
/Like a Hallmark greeting card Elizabethtown is sweet, earnest, and well meaning, but it lacks any real depth or insight. You pass a pleasant two hours under its ephemeral spell but never really connect to the leads or take their situation seriously.
Read MoreInglourious Basterds: Rote Grütze (Raspberry Dessert)
/It’s an adrenalin-pumping roller coaster of a film - one filled with the same heights and depths as the carnival ride. Fine acting shines next to ham-fisted farce; suspense dissolves into brutal bloodbaths, and appalling violence is not rejected but repeated on a grander scale. Enjoy it at your own risk, but leave your moral compass at home.
Read MoreHarry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: Blueberry Goblet of Fire
/Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is a smorgasbord of a film filled to the brim with old favorites and new delights. The splendid Hogwarts School sparkles with medieval majesty and mayhem, the eccentric professors inspire awe, that piquant dish of wonder peppered with dread, while tried friends and old enemies test the murky waters of adolescence.
Read MoreEat Pray Love: Balsamic Black Cherry Gelato
/Julia Roberts, that coltish beauty with the 100-mega watt smile, is the perfect actress to play the lead role in Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir about her yearlong spiritual quest. Ms. Roberts transforms what otherwise might be seen as self-indulgent into the stuff dreams are made of, just as she elevated prostitution to a higher plane in Pretty Woman.
Read MoreSalt: White Russian Cocktail
/Did Columbia Pictures actually hire a cadre of extras to pose as Russian sleeper agents to hype the release of Angelina Jolie’s latest thriller? Those alleged spies were certainly whisked off to Moscow before we could blink an eye, weren’t they? It’s enough to make you wonder is they merely disappeared into central casting to pick up their checks and former identities.
Read MoreThe Tree of Life: Leeks au Gratin
/Is it great art or hokum? Director Terrence Malick overreaches when he tries to frame his poignant tale with self-conscious cosmic grandeur. Despite its tantalizing story, evocative performances, and breathtaking cinematography, this Cannes Palm d’Or winner is sadly compromised by its New Age spirituality run amok.
Read MoreTropic Thunder: Vietnamese Beef Pho
/This very guilty pleasure is a minefield choked with enough vulgarity and gore to incinerate most of Southeast Asia, which it almost does. But when you set out to parody films specializing in lewd humor and graphic violence, outrage is not just an outcome, it is an inevitability. And yes, I confess, I laughed in spite of myself.
Read MoreAs It is in Heaven: Swedish Pancakes
/When a heart attack cuts shorts the international career of a renowned Swedish conductor, he returns to the small village of his childhood, and in a sense, begins his life anew. What he has failed to learn from the grand symphonies of Europe he begins to learn from the ordinary voices of the church choir he reluctantly agrees to direct.
Read MoreThe Lake House: Thyme Roasted Sea Scallops
/Gloriously romantic and blissfully unfettered by logic, this gauzy love story is as sweet and appealing as it two costars, Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves, who first shared celluloid space back in 1994 in the surprise hit, Speed.
Read MoreAnother Year: The Perfect Cucumber Sandwich
/This film is not so much a story -- in fact, it’s not a story at all. It’s a montage of the ways we create or destroy our own happiness, how we build our own cages and then blame someone else for the bars.
Read MoreVertical Ray of the Sun: Green Papaya Salad
/Take your favorite soap opera, whisk it over to Viet Nam, and produce it with a Masterpiece Theater eye for detail. Then throw in an edgy structure to keep your audience deliciously off balance, and you have a film that leaves you as pleasantly light headed as that second glass of bubbly.
Read MoreShrek the Third: Gingerbread Men
/Shrek the Third is like that Happy Meal overloaded with salt, fat, and calories. Your kids will love it, but you know better. What you see as stale jokes are endearingly familiar to the tots; creativity turned to cliché doesn’t bother them at all, and wandering story lines are not unlike their own hiking habits.
Read MorePercy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief: Pomegranate Cosmopolitan Cocktail
/Take one part National Treasure, throw in a touch of Harry Potter, season with a dash of X-Men, and you have some family friendly fare with more than enough fun to while away its two hour running time. Grounded in Greek mythology, the fantasy is as light as puff pastry, with Poseidon providing the necessary spritzer to wash it down.
Read MorePrince of Persia: The Sands of Time: Persian Cucumber Yogurt Recipe
/This is your double fudge summer sundae – sweet, indulgent, and completely insubstantial. A street urchin prince and his enemy princess as feisty as she is beautiful, not to mention mystic assassins, royal betrayal, ostrich races, and a dagger that can turn back the sands of time.
Read MoreThe Road: Chicken and Dumplings
/This definitely is not a charmer. It is a descent into Dante’s Inferno without the bulwark of absolute faith to sustain its pilgrims. A glimpse into an abyss that entrances and repels, a dark vision that chills to the bone.
Read MoreThe International: Shish Kabob
/Clive Owen and Naomi Watts are almost as unrelenting and ruthless as our Congress in going after Big Banks, but the titular lending institution of this film makes predatory lending sound like a child’s game. And it’s not the mortgages that are toxic, but the actual investigators themselves, when they get too close to the truth. One had better think twice before defaulting on any loans.
Read MoreEdge of Darkness: Boston Cream Pie Recipe
/Back to the future. It’s as if Mel Gibson has distilled all the rebellious rage of his entire film career into one dark and potent brew, and then downed it in one gulp. The hard-hitting revenge tale does not disappoint. It is crisp, brutal, and at times, even tender.
Read MorePublic Enemies: Persimmon Pudding
/Johnny Depp shines in his portrayal of romanticized bank robber John Dillinger, his smile just as disarming as his tommy gun. And the midnight shootout in the hush woods of Wisconsin evokes some fond memories of Midwest Fourth of July fireworks. But the rest is rather lackluster, with a script that paints some of the most colorful thugs of the era with the gray tones of a Sunday obituary for the local dentist.
Read MoreHamlet: Pork Loin with Figs: Beet and Orange Salad
/Weddings and funerals – all the epic intrigues surround them. Don’t be turned away by snobs who label Gibson’s version “middle brow” or “Shakespeare for the common man.” Old Willie Boy himself would probably have preferred Mel’s performance over those of his silver-tongued precursors.
Read More
