Clik here to view.
Last Stop: Fruitvale Station Is a Raw Depiction of the Murder of an Innocent...
Michael B. Jordan in Fruitvale Station. Sincerely made and palpably perceptive, Fruitvale Station is a factual, racially motivated miscarriage-of-justice film guaranteed to stir the emotions of humane...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Rooting for the Robots: Pacific Rim Is Another in a Long, Predictable Line of...
Charlie Hunnam and Rinko Kikuchi in Pacific Rim. Everyone knows summer is a dumping ground for rubbish. This year, drifting around like bronchitis-laden pollen, between the awful (The Lone Ranger) and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Town Turned Against Him: In The Hunt, Mads Mikkelsen Gives His Most...
Mads Mikkelsen. Mads Mikkelsen, the craggy-faced, testosterone-fueled film star from Copenhagen, is Denmark’s most iconic export since Hans Christian Anderson and Hamlet. As versatile as he is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
G/T/F/O: V/H/S/2 Is Unwatchable From Start to Finish
V/H/S/2. In this indescribably gory, violent, plotless and deranged purloin of every horror movie ever made by amateurs with a wobbly, nauseating handheld camera, seven unknown directors hell-bent on...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Unforgivable: Only God Forgives Is One of the Worst Movies Ever Made
Ryan Gosling in Only God Forgives. Gruesomely grotesque and pathologically pretentious, a diabolical horror called Only God Forgives may not be the worst movie ever made, but it is unquestionably in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Family Affairs: Everything in Broken Is Broken
Eloise Laurence in Broken. An arty domestic drama with dark and sinister undertones, Broken begins as a quirky look at three dysfunctional families at the end of an ugly street in the British suburbs...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Third Way: Copperhead Is a Noble Conclusion to Ron Maxwell’s Civil War Trilogy
Billy Campbell as Abner Beech in Copperhead. Solemn, well researched, intellectually admirable, and beautifully photographed, Copperhead focuses on an aspect of the Civil War that has never been shown...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Twilight: In Still Mine, an Old Couple Summons the Courage to Face Mortality
James Cromwell and Geneviève Bujold in Still Mine. Clinging to what’s left of life when the spirit is willing but the apple won’t bite is the subject of Still Mine, a sensitively made, superbly acted...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Woody Is Back: Blue Jasmine Is a Triumphant Take on A Streetcar Named Desire
Peter Sarsgaard kisses a delusional Cate Blanchett. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: even on an off day, Woody Allen is better than everyone else on Sunday. But Blue Jasmine is not Woody...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Oddballs Without a Cause: In Girl Most Likely, Actors Fall Victim to a...
Kristen Wiig, center, and Annette Bening in Girl Most Likely. A good cast enlivens a labored farce called Girl Most Likely, another holdover from last year’s Toronto International Film Festival that is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Space and Survival: Roger Christian’s Stark Alien Epic Makes Up for...
Christian Slater in Stranded. Demon Seed meets Alien in this commendably unpretentious but imaginatively bankrupt not-so-thrilling sci-fi thriller directed by Roger Christian, the man behind the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Movies (They’re What I Want)
Woody Allen and John Turturro in Fading Gigolo. The Toronto International Film Festival (a k a TIFF) reminds me of Red Skelton’s toxic line, when he looked around at the unexpected mob of mourners who...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Single Shot: This B-movie Potboiler Has Been Done a Thousand Times
William H. Macy in A Single Shot. Sam Rockwell is one talented, free-spirited dude, with one of the longest lists of bad movies no single actor deserves. Even in a dog like Seven Psychopaths, he...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Pure Terror: Denis Villeneuve’s Nail-Biting Police Procedural Is an Artistic...
Hugh Jackman in Prisoners. Prepare to be electrified! When it comes to thrillers, Prisoners is the must-see sensation of the year. Grisly, gruesome and unnerving, this first-time English-speaking...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Talking and Talking: In Nicole Holofcener’s Charming Romantic Comedy, Two TV...
Enough Said. Success can be limiting. While the late James Gandolfini probably didn’t mind the phenomenal long run of The Sopranos that made him rich and famous, I’m told he was glad to see it end,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Vexed, Perplexed and Oversexed: In Stuart Blumberg’s Latest, Sex Addiction Is...
Thanks For Sharing. The theme of sex addiction, a disease that causes both physical and psychological pain and often drives its sufferers to suicide, took viewers to the dark side in Shame. Director...
View ArticleClik here to view.
All the Real Girls: Don Jon Looks at Love in the Time of Porn Addiction
GorLev and ScarJo, together at last. A benign little time-waster called Don Jon marks the writer-director debut of momentary dweeb flavor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who also stars as a pornography-addicted...
View ArticleClik here to view.
One Day at a Time: Leland Orser’s Morning Is a Quietly Understated...
Leland Orser as a grief-stricken husband in Morning. Powerful and wrenching, Morning is the story of a married couple torn apart by grief in the aftermath of a tragedy, told from two points of view....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Hard Times: Star-Studded Revival of Harold Pinter’s Bleak Betrayal Is a Mixed...
Daniel Craig as Robert and Rachel Weisz as Emma in Betrayal. (Photo by Brigitte Lacombe) Articulate talk, sophisticated emotions and intelligent restraint are rare commodities in short supply these...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Big Sur: Yet Another in an Endless Stream of Beat Generation Movies Nobody...
Jean-Marc Barr as Jack Kerouac in Big Sur. Grim, idiosyncratic and paralyzed with ennui, Big Sur lives up to the four most deterrent words in contemporary cinema: “Big hit at Sundance!” It’s yet...
View Article