Showing posts with label Bob Balaban. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bob Balaban. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

The Monuments Men





In the flat and turgid "The Monuments Men," George Clooney turns WWII into a painted set, a mere backdrop for a series of vapid speeches (by him, natch) about art as the cornerstone of civilization, the thing we were fighting for most.

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Thin Ice





There's a lot to like in Jill Sprecher's bitingly cold Kenosha black comedy "Thin Ice," starring Greg Kinnear as a fast-talking Wisconisn insurance salesman living beyond his means. A big score appears in the form of a dotard customer (Alan Arkin) who doesn't seem to realize he owns a violin, or how valuable it may be. In trying to pry it away, Kinnear encounters Arkin's relentlessly sunny neighbor, who always seems to check up on the old guy at the most inopportune time; the powder-keg ex-con (Billy Crudup) Arkin has annoyingly hired to install a home alarm system; and an ethical luthier (Bob Balaban) who maddeningly insists the fiddle be sold on the up and up.