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, too.
Exodus: Gods and Kings: Quinoa Tabbouleh Recipe
/I liked the book better than the movie. The Bible’s story of Moses leading his people to freedom is much more compelling than Ridley Scott’s cinematic version. But what can you expect when a self-acknowledged atheist with little sympathy for the religious storyline is the director?
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A Tale of Two Sisters: Korean Style Grilled Chicken Recipe
/A Tales of Two Sisters is an Edgar Allan Poe ghost story as Ingmar Bergman might have told it. Or less charitably, it seems the work of a precocious teenager who manages to fill it chock full of frightening images –ghostly apparitions and life-like nightmares that spew you awake in a heart pounding sweat—but isn’t particularly mindful about sewing it all together with a cord of logic.
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Ponyo: Asian Beef and Ramen Noodles
/Gone are wisecracking animals, and bigger than life villains; in place are creations both whimsical and surrealThis Japanese animation is very much like its imagery, which more resembles soft impressionist watercolors than what we’ve come to expect from our American feature length cartoons.
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Masquerade: Red Bean Pudding
/Mark Twain goes Korean in this Asian version of The Prince and the Pauper. It’s a delicious stir-fry of elegant ritual spiced up with palace intrigue and bawdy humor. But there’s a lot heart here, too, largely construed through the superb acting gifts of its star in a dual role, playing the both king and his commoner double.
Read MoreThe Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian: Coronation Crumpets
/We have as much menace as magic in the revisited Narnia, with the Pevensie clan once again whisked away to the fantasy kingdom to save it from itself. Treachery this time out is more homegrown, as the handsome Prince Caspian flees from his treacherous uncle, who wants the throne for his newborn son.
Clash of the Titans: Baked Greek Grouper
/This is a cotton candy of a film – an enticing confection spun into an aromatic puff of delight. It is a brief and teasing taste of early summer sunshine complete with maidens lovely and virtuous, warriors bold and brave, and gods great and glorious even in their pettiness.
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War of the Worlds: Humus
/War of the Worlds is a lot like our favorite summer pastimes -- the heart in your mouth freefall of a roller coaster ride, the sweet but insubstantial joy of cotton candy. Thrills and delights, but not much more.
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Trance: An English Breakfast
/You won’t sleepwalk through this slick and sexy thriller. But you may get dizzy from the unexpected plot twists and character reversals, not to mention a disquieting glimpse into an amoral world.
Read More Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead: Brazilian Avocado Cream
/The critics ooh and ah over another sordid Hollywood tale of lust, greed, and betrayal, proclaiming the technical wizardry of its 83 year old director. But what we really have here is a set of rather repulsive characters who vie with each other over their levels of debauchery and amoral fecklessness.
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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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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 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 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 MoreThe International: Shish Kabob
/Clive Owen and Naomi Watts are almost as unrelenting and ruthless as our Congress in going after Big Banks, but the titular lending institution of this film makes predatory lending sound like a child’s game. And it’s not the mortgages that are toxic, but the actual investigators themselves, when they get too close to the truth. One had better think twice before defaulting on any loans.
Read MorePublic Enemies: Persimmon Pudding
/Johnny Depp shines in his portrayal of romanticized bank robber John Dillinger, his smile just as disarming as his tommy gun. And the midnight shootout in the hush woods of Wisconsin evokes some fond memories of Midwest Fourth of July fireworks. But the rest is rather lackluster, with a script that paints some of the most colorful thugs of the era with the gray tones of a Sunday obituary for the local dentist.
Read MoreHamlet: Pork Loin with Figs: Beet and Orange Salad
/Weddings and funerals – all the epic intrigues surround them. Don’t be turned away by snobs who label Gibson’s version “middle brow” or “Shakespeare for the common man.” Old Willie Boy himself would probably have preferred Mel’s performance over those of his silver-tongued precursors.
Read MoreMarch of the Penguins: Penguin Party Log and Iceberg Parfait Recipe
/If you missed it at theaters, sit back in awe while you witness the single-minded determination of the March of the Penguins, as they trek the frozen white landscape of Antarctica and the sapphire waters that lap at its icebound banks.
Read MoreBorat: Villa Montana Baked Ham Recipe
/Plaudits for some risky social satire and a few pokes at humorless PC armor, but none for its lazy reliance on safe targets and vulgarity rather than wit. What’s more, beneath its obvious goring of bias and prejudice, the film reveals its own.
Read MoreSpider-Man 3: Peanut Butter Cookies Recipe
/Spider-Man still careens from New York’s skyscrapers with audacious grace, but the grounded Peter Parker embraces his newfound fame with less ease. Even before the gooey black meteor gel brings out his dark side, we see Peter heading that way on his own. Let’s face it-- a steady diet of glory is a bit rich for Geeks.
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