Bright Star

Plus: Fame, Pandorium and Surrogates

By Volcano Staff on September 24, 2009

BRIGHT STAR: Minireview: Jane Campion’s beautiful and wistful film shows John Keats and Fanny Brawne submerged blissfully in a love that exists almost entirely of their idealism.  The great young poet and the younger girl who found his poetry difficult live in two halves of a tiny cottage in Hampstead and drown in nature and Romanticism, in a film with its own visual poetry.  Abbie Cornish is entrancing as a determined seamstress who supports herself, which is more than Keats can do. (PG) Three and a half stars – RE


COLD SOULS: A comedy/drama staring Paul Giamatti as himself, struggling to get control of this weight he feels inside of him. He's taking the lead role in a Russian play too seriously and is feeling stressed out. His agent calls and tells him to pick up the latest New Yorker. In it is an article about soul storage. A service provided for those who wish to lighten their inner self of guilt, shame or whatever else is bogging them down by extracting their soul and storing it. PG-13. Three stars — RE


FAME: Remake of 1980’s sensation that spawned both a television series and stage production.  The film follows a group of students attending the New York School of Performing Arts. (PG) – BW


PANDORUM: Two astronauts wake up to a dark, seemingly empty spaceship with no memory of how they got there. Starring Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster. (R) – Bill White


SURROGATES: Bruce Willis, with a silly haircut, is an FBI agent investigating a murder that points to a very powerful man providing the world with robotic versions of themselves. (PG-13) – BW