The Bourne Legacy: The Manila Flame Cocktail
/The thrill is gone. Despite the great chase sequences, in particular a motorcycle caper that puts extreme sports shenanigans to shame, this new addition to the Bourne franchise falls flat.
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Often 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 Appetite for Murder: A Mystery Lover’s Cookbook.
John Carter: Watercress Fennel Salad with Tarragon Rosemary Vinaigrette
/If you missed this epic adventure from the writer who created Tarzan when it debued last spring, you owe it to yourself to see it on your home screen. It's a heady mix of Gothic Noir and the space opera fun that got us all hooked on Star Wars.
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10,000 B.C.: Mammoth Burgers
/Imagine a Saturday matinee from bygone days. A bigger than life, whimsical epic sweeps across the screen, brushing aside in its huge wake such trivial distractions as historical accuracy and geographical reality. You’ve got Ice Age mammoths, tropical rain forests, a friendly saber-toothed tiger, and great pyramids reaching into the desert skies. What’s not to like?
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Battleship: Picante Chicken Rice Burrito
/Don’t be put off by the carping critics who have tried a preemptive strike to sink this Battleship. In fact, their bombast has been so blustering that it almost put me off as well. Yet this film has everything that the old-fashioned summer blockbuster once did – great action, likeable characters you learn to care about, and just the right touch of sentiment.
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Priceless: Champagne Punch
/Think of words you never thought you’d be using together, such as delightfully decadent, innocently seductive, or wickedly wonderful. And then those that seem made for each other, like sophisticated, French, sex, and farce. Combine these with the same light touch those Gauls use in their pastry, and you get this cream puff of a film - sweet, airy, and utterly delicious.
Read MoreJourney 2: The Mysterious Island 3D
/Following in Different Drummer’s footsteps, 8-year-old grandson Gram counters the critics who are generally unimpressed with Journey 2: The Mysterious Island 3D. He says it is scary but great. His favorite character was Hank, played by Dwayne Johnson. When I told him that Dwayne is also known as the "Rock," a wrestler of WWE RAW fame, I could see his eyes pop open, even though we were talking on the phone.
Being Julia: Treacle Tart with Custard Sauce
/It is Sunset Boulevard with a younger, sunnier disposition, All About Eve, with Bening’s joie de vivre juggernaut replacing Bette Davis’s ironic deadpan. We have the same May-September alliances, the same fawning fans with their daggers concealed, but with a lightness that is neither brittle nor hard.
Read MoreLeatherheads: Prohibition’s White Lady
/Are you addicted to car chases, fiery explosions, and bigger than life bad guys? Unrelenting nihilism, sexual acrobatics, and violence in all its shades of gore magnetically attract you? Then pass on this one. But if you long for those forgotten virtues such as witty repartee, and a kind of savvy innocence, you will really enjoy George Clooney’s latest venture.
Read MoreBroken Flowers: Ethiopian Cheese Dip and Injera Bread
/The critics gush while Bill Murray sleepwalks through a film that tries its darnedest to be devoid of meaning. Guess what? It succeeds.
Read MoreThe 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 MoreElizabethtown: 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.
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