Michael Hoffman
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Connections, in both directions
With a style not unlike the 1989 Robin Williams vehicle Dead Poets Society, it tells the story of a man so passionate about his subject (in this case, ancient Greek and Roman culture) that his students, for the most part, become caught up in it as well; however, in this story one comes along whose attitude clashes so badly with the teachers, it begins to disrupt his entire well-ordered universe.
But, the insipid, shallow tale of "The Emperor's Club", based on the short story by Ethan Canin (The Palace Thief), has pretensions of being a combination of "Goodbye Mister Chips" (the so-so 1969 one, not he the 1938 Robert Donat version) and "Dead Poets Society," but the makers can't even come up with a less derivative title.
Once again, the charming McAvoy, with his boyish enthusiasm, finds himself helping other people get nominated for Oscars (Forest Whitaker in "The Last King of Scotland"; Saoirse Ronan in "Atonement").
James McAvoy, whose roles were more serious in films like Atonement, is quite adept in the comedic scenes as Valentin tries to hide his developing relationship with the free-spirited Masha (Kerry Condon), whom he meets on the Tolstoy estate.
McAvoy was effective in controlled doses as the docile working-class foil in Atonement, but his puppyish face proves distracting in the one-upping literary salon, where scribes write down everything anybody says and cut each other to pieces.
When young Tolstoyan Valentin Bulgakov (James McAvoy, "Atonement") is recruited to be the great writer's assistant by Tolstoy's Vladimir Chertkov (Paul Giamatti, "Sideways," "Cold Souls"), Chertkov warns him that he must keep note of everything that happens, particularly in regards to copyrights, because Tolstoy's wife, the Countess Sofya (Helen Mirren, "The Queen") is dangerous.
It’s as if movies like One Fine Day and The Peacemaker (the latter heavily featured in the Kelly montage, if I’m not mistaken) became signature smashes, and Clooney never branched out into socially-conscious directing or the elder-statesman gravitas to understand his slow, natural fade.
…during the climactic montage of his work that includes clips from such real-life Clooney landmarks as Leatherheads, The Peacemaker, and…did I spot One Fine Day(?)
Set It Up feels like a return to that era, when smaller-scale star vehicles like Picture Perfect , You’ve Got Mail , One Fine Day , and While You Were Sleeping were regular fixtures at the multiplex.
Rom-coms pretty much defined mainstream cinema in the ’90s with classics like When Harry Met Sally, You’ve Got Mail, Sleepless in Seattle, One Fine Day, and Jerry Maguire.
If you look at the past films that Fetters and Roth had written, perhaps you could see why A Star is Born became so schmaltzy and somewhat hackneyed: Eric Roth had written the overrated and cheesy Forrest Gump and the overwrought, overlong and lethargic The Curious Case of Benjamin Button while Will Fetters wrote the cloying romantic dramas The Best of Me and The Lucky Ones.
The relationship between Jackson and Ally beautifully takes its time, just as the screenplay, credited to Eric Roth (2011's " Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close ") and Bradley Cooper & Will Fetters (2014's " The Best of Me "), is interested in listening to themtheir viewpoints, the give-and-take of their burgeoning courtship, and their ultimate concerns for each other.His voice a few octaves lower, much of his mannerisms surely not his own, Bradley Cooper (2016's " War Dogs ") becomes Jackson Maine through and through while shedding all movie-star predilections except one: his innate charisma as a performer who, here, cannot be caught acting.
She’s raising a teenaged son, Kevin, played by Ian Nelson, who also had a bit part in last year’s Sparks adaptation The Best of Me, and seems not to have learned from the experience.