Sam’s Place

Frost/Nixon (2008)

Emma: ★★★★

Frank Langella was great as former President Nixon & Michael Sheen was very good as interviewer David Frost. It’s impressive that a good movie could be made about an interview.

Sam: ★★★

Well-done but not enough of a story for me: washed-up, disgraced former President fails to completely dominate the final of a series of interviews.

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Half Nelson (2006)

Sam: ★★★

I kept going back & forth on Ryan Gosling’s Oscar-nominated performance as a left-wing, do-gooder white teacher — and drug addict — in a black school. Interesting, intriguing concept, & pretty good performance. Ultimately, I felt that the story didn’t progress much & Gosling’s performance was somewhat one-dimensional. Still, not bad.

Emma: ★★★★

Good acting, especially from the young Shareeka Epps.

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Phone Call from a Stranger (1952)

Sam: ★★★

An early-’50s movie with the then-racy theme of adultery. Now it has some good aspects but is too dated to be really enjoyable.

Emma: ★★★

Started off well, but declined into mediocrity.

Hamlet 2 (2008)

Sam: ★★★★

H2 was written by Pam Brady, who also worked on the South Park movie, so it has bad South Park-style jokes. But there are some yucks & some surprises (Elisabeth Shue as Elisabeth Shue), the acting is very good (Steve Coogan & Catherine Keener, especially), & the musical-within-the-movie is weird, well-done & funny.

Emma: ★★★

There are some funny gags in this movie — I particularly liked the high school theater critic — but it’s odd to the point of being disjointed.

JCVD (Le Rois des Belges) (2008)

Sam: ★★

• A postmodern multinational European flick that reinvents of the life of action star Jean-Claude Van Damme. A funny idea but not a very good movie.

Emma: ★★

• Fun to see JC V D try to do some acting but I didn’t enjoy the (artsy) washed-out colors and poor editing.