The Movie Brothers are proud to have Lauren Romano as a new contributor to The Movie Brothers. Lauren is a former journalist of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, a copywriter, and movie blogger. You should check out her site, mylifeatthemovies.com, in which she plans to see every movie released this year. Here’s her first review for us.
Julia Roberts stars in this adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert’s best-selling memoir about coping with a depressing divorce. After deciding to reshape her life, Liz (Roberts) travels the world in search of direction. She heads to Italy, India and Bali, indulging in delicious cuisine while seeking the true meaning of self-love, family, friendship and forgiveness. Along the way, she meets a bevy of characters and, possibly, her true love.
Lauren
Rating: 3 out of 10
But, for some reason, I still wanted to see the movie. I couldn’t resist Julia Roberts eating her way through Italy and falling in love with Javier Bardem. I thought the Hollywood treatment, which has ruined so many books, could make this one enjoyable.
Too long. Too much introspective. Too much thought. I really believe no one actually cares what’s in someone else’s journal. We all feel alone. We’re all afraid. We’re all disappointed. We’ve all been hurt. So why is Liz’s story so interesting? It’s not. She just got a book deal and was able to take a year off and travel the world in search of her balance. Most of us have to settle, finding our balance between our 7 a.m. Starbucks and our 11 p.m. sleeping pill.
Thin Ice
Midwest insurance salesman Mickey Prohaska (Greg Kinnear) hatches a get-rich-quick scheme that depends on him gaining possession of a rare and precious violin, but his planned score results in wild and unexpected consequences. Alan Arkin, Billy Crudup and Lea Thompson co-star in this meditation on lying and its consequences, written by sisters Jill and Karen Sprecher (Thirteen Conversations About One Thing).
Matt
Rating: 8 out of 10
The only reason I watched this movie is because it popped out of the Red Box by mistake. I literally knew nothing about this movie when I started watching. But the Red Box machine’s mistake became my surprise fortune. Now that’s good movie karma!
Greg Kinnear leads an excellent cast as a truly unlikable human being. He swindles people in business, cheats on his wife, doesn’t take care of his finances or family, and when pushed to his limits, will cover up a murder. This is one of those movies where there’s no good guy to root for. It’s definitely not filmed like an Alfred Hitchcock movie, but the script has the feel of it. Kudos to the Sprecher sisters for writing an intriguing script that unfolds very nicely, keeps the intensity at a great level, and inspires great performances by Alan Arkin, Billy Crudup, David Harbour and Lea Thompson.
This is a movie where nothing goes right, there are no heroes, and no possibility of a positive outcome. Sounds bleak, right? Well, it works very well with the balance of some humor. Bad deeds lead to more bad deeds, and they keep piling up. As the audience, we feel the tension build. the danger grow, and the risks get higher. It’s an entertaining movie, for sure.
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