In Contention

Tag: Blake Lively

  • ‘Green’ means go see it

    It didn’t really hit me how excited I (still) was for “Green Lantern” until the lights dimmed and the green hit the screen. It can’t be understated how much of a long-time-coming type of thing this is, a theatrical version of such a vast cosmic comic book creation. And given the mechanics of the world, the amount of digital wizardry needed to conjure it, not to mention some dense continuity that never presented a clear-cut story for the screen, it’s understandable that it took so long.

    But things started to change in 2004. Geoff Johns, a long-time DC guy who had written on a number of the company’s books (and already had a nice film education under his wing from his time as a Richard Donner mentee), started re-tooling the DC universe, beginning with one of his favorite characters: Hal Jordan. The “Rebirth” storyline led into a revitalized line of books featuring the Green Lantern Corps, a more than 3,000-member strong organization of intergalactic peace keepers, with Jordan right in the center of things. The elements Johns began tinkering with and re-envisioning — which were themselves building toward the “Blackest Night” and “Brightest Day” comic events of the last two years — began to reveal a way into the material for the screen. And now, “Green Lantern.”

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  • SHORT TAKE: “The Town” (***)

    Venice Film Festival

    Many actors-turned-directors use their outings behind the camera to express something of themselves that they feel hasn’t been enabled by the filmmakers they’ve worked with thus far: personal passions or preoccupations, social or political responsibilities, alternative thespian workout plans or simply a craven desire for awards they haven’t been able to win on their day job.

    Ben Affleck, however, is not drawn by any of these urges. Ben Affleck just wants to make movies. And with his sophomore feature “The Town” – a crisp, grown-up, tangily written thriller one might call “conventional” if studio entertainments this efficient weren’t so hard to come by these days – he further proves that he can make very good ones indeed.

    Affleck’s directorial debut “Gone Baby Gone,” a solid Dennis Lehane adaptation with a fluffed denouement, arguably received a mite more praise than it warranted due to general surprise at the sheer professionalism on display. “The Town” is a more followed-through genre effort with fewer artsy flourishes, but is perhaps destined to be underrated instead by critics expecting Affleck to develop more of an auteur’s ambition.

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