Imagine a movie that stars Brad Pitt as the legendary outlaw Jesse James. Now take all the expectations you might have for such a film and turn them inside out. That’s the best way I can think to describe “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.” The film contains no shootouts, no high-speed chases, no showdowns in dusty saloons — nothing you might expect from a story about America’s most notorious bandit. Instead, it offers nearly three hours of quiet, contemplative drama punctuated by seemingly endless shots of wheat fields and cloud formations. By turns fascinating and frustrating, “Assassination” isn’t a very successful film, but it’s one of the most interesting failures I’ve seen in a while.
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Last Thursday, after a particularly long day of coffee-pouring and danish-slinging topped off with a fair bit of lab write-up hell, I was more than ready for the hearty dose of punk noise oblivion offered by Mika-Miko at Friday Night Rock. Though I looked forward to the release of my day’s frustration, as a classical musician who prefers the lilting strains of 17th century Baroque music or the more “soothing” branches of indie rock, I was apprehensive about my relative ignorance of the punk music I was about to get blasted with.
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ELIZABETH: THE GOLDEN AGE
This superfluous sequel to 1998’s “Elizabeth” restores Cate Blanchett to the throne of England. This time around, Queen Bess faces an invasion from Spain. Cate Blanchett’s regal bombast energizes the film — at one point she upstages an entire battlefield — but Clive Owen is bland as a block as the requisite love interest, and the movie itself feels obscenely overproduced. I kept wondering how Blanchett kept her twig-like neck from snapping under the weight of those enormous wigs; uneasy lies the head that wears the crown, I guess. — A.J. Fox
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