Movie Review: X-Men: First Class

This latest installation of the X-Men series chronicles events leading to the formation of X-Men. The movie starts during and immediately after WWII. Charles Xavier meets the future Mystique, graduates from Oxford and then forms the collection of mutants known as X-men. The future Dynamo is discovered in a Nazi concentration camp by a Mengele type character played by Kevin Bacon.

Unlike many sequels, this film is probably the best of the series. Similar in talent, scope and story line to the latest Star Trek sequel.

Movie Review: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

This is the fourth installation of the Johnny Depp and the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. Jack Sparrow and his sometimes nemesis, Barbossa, embark on a quest to find Ponce de Leon’s fountain of youth. Penelope Cruz plays Blackbeard’s daughter. She and Blackbeard struggle with Captain Jack Sparrow, Barbossa and now the King of Spain for the waters of the legendary fountain.

This episode has similar elements of the original movie. Unlike the third film of the series, this film does not rely as heavily on special effects to carry the plot. There is considerably more closure at movie's end than the last movie.

Movie Review: "Hanna"

This film is an action thriller about a 16 year old girl, played by Saoirse Ronan (Atonement), who is raised by her assassin father in an isolated wilderness near the Arctic Circle. After being separated for the first time from her father, their reunion takes her on a mission across Europe. Cate Blanchett plays an evil, formidable CIA officer who is bent on the destruction of Hanna and her father. The choreography is creative and violence, which occurs often, is not vulgar.

Movie Review: "Of gods and Men"

This recently released film recounts the real life drama of eight French Trappist monks living in a remote monastery in the Algerian Atlas Mountains. The monastery serves an impoverished Moslem village. They offer free medical care to the villagers and sell produce and honey. During the Algerian Civil War of the 1990’s, the monks are called on to treat villagers and terrorists alike. After other foreigners are murdered, they are urged by the Algerian government to evacuate to France. They decide to stay in the monastery, despite the danger of being killed by the Islamic terrorists.

Unlike many films, this story line holds very accurately to the actual events, setting and rituals of the characters- monks and villagers alike. Dialogue is fairly sparse, but not needed. The faith of the monks is fairly accurately expressed by the characters.

Movie Review: “Unknown”

Liam Neeson stars in this international action thriller as beleaguered American biologist, Martin Harris, who has a terrible accident after just arriving in Berlin for an international conference. Upon awakening from a coma, he discovers that he is either not who he remembers being or that there is a vast conspiracy to eliminate his identity. The plot is fairly sophisticated. Story development is a little slow. The movie runs over two hours. As usual, Liam Neeson’s acting is superb. Bruno Ganz’s portrayal of former Stasi agent Ernst Jürgen was superb.

Review: “Joe Jones: Radical Painter of the American Scene

January 23 through April 17, The Dixon Museum is hosting a display of paintings lithographs and murals by Joe Jones of St. Louis. Jones lived from 1909 to 1963. The exhibition displays portraits, landscapes as well as magazine covers. His style has been described as “Regionalist”- a combination of cubism, realism- with art deco thrown in for good measure. The most interesting pieces are his portraits. There is none of the distracting abstraction found in some modernist work. Reproductions of some of his murals that are at Commonwealth College in Mena, Arkansas and in a Missouri radio station were also on display.

Movie Review: "Unstoppable"

This action thriller was released last week and is now showing at several theaters in town. Denzel Washington plays an almost over-the-hill train conductor who nurse mades “newbie” Chris Pine on a roller coaster of a train ride across Pennsylvania. A half-mile-long unmanned freight train races across the countryside, heading for a potential collision with a train filled with school children and a large city. A news helicopter provides live feeds for audience- reminiscent of “Blackhawk Down.” Denzel Washington portrayal of a wizened middle age blue collar worker is excellent. The interaction and relational development between him and his apprentice in the train engine makes the movie. The ending is, as expected, sappy. The movie is of appropriate length. It is suspenseful, but not over the top.