'Farewell, My Queen': Visually Sumptuous But Dramatically Flat
Foppish finery. Palace intrigue. Creamy, swelling bosoms. Yep, it’s another film about life and love among the decadent elite in 18th-century France. Those elements may make you think of sensual...
View ArticleDog Days: Our Critic Suffers Through the Late-Summer Dregs of Home Video So...
There comes a time every summer when the home-entertainment enthusiast finds him- or herself at a loss, surveying the options for a wind-down flick and finding them wanting. Or maybe this only happens...
View ArticleJeremy Renner and Tony Gilroy Inject New Blood Into the 'Bourne' Franchise
The first thing you need to know about The Bourne Legacy is this: It is not, in any meaningful sort of way, a Bourne movie. Jason Bourne’s shadow certainly looms large, but the elusive supersoldier...
View ArticleDead Alive: 'ParaNorman'’s Stop-Motion Charm Wins Over Even the Most...
Like the rare couples-therapy weekend that doesn’t end in visions of bloody murder-suicide, ParaNorman has rekindled a love affair that had long since lurched its way into indifference.
View ArticleTwo New Documentaries Look at the Dramatic Lives of Bob Marley and Bobby...
Bob Marley remains one of the best-known people on the planet, even 31 years after he left it. But all the namechecks and merchandising have left him seeming like more of an icon than a mere mortal, or...
View ArticleTwo Different Approaches To Murder: 'The Snowtown Murders' and 'Kill List'
Poverty, broken windows, broken family structures, substance abuse—you know the story. As The Snowtown Murders unfolds, this based-on-actual-events tale takes an even more disturbing turn. Casual...
View ArticleDown and Dirty: Director Revels in the Violent Excess of 'Killer Joe'
If you’re waiting for a glimmer of redemption or even a fleeting moment of grace, you’ll still be waiting when the credits roll—Killer Joe is not that kind of movie.
View ArticleDavid Cronenberg Follows Don DeLillo’s Literary Limo, Without a Destination
David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis is a movie of ideas, or at least one idea.
View Article'Dredd': Familiar But Brutally Awesome Adaptation of the British Comics...
Dredd is a gorgeous, grimy, and relentlessly gory spectacle that gets most of the important things right. It has two modes: bombastic, expertly staged action scenes, and closing credits.
View Article'Beyond the Black Rainbow' Is More Than Just a Stylish Tribute to ’80s Horror...
The stark, chromatic décor and the pulsing synth score telegraph the days when future visions were transmitted via VHS cassette, or maybe expensive laserdisc. But then this isn’t quite like any 1983...
View ArticlePaul Thomas Anderson’s 'The Master' Confounds Expectations
The Master isn’t really a story, about Scientology or anything else, as much as a dual character study featuring two exceptional actors playing out two crucial archetypes.
View Article'Looper'’s Emotional Complexity Outweighs Its Brain-Bending Time-Travel Set-Up
Most glossy sci-fi films would pull back before entering the heady, sometimes shockingly dark, and supremely rewarding territory where Looper makes its home. Rather than getting himself caught up in...
View Article'Seven Psychopaths' Serves Up a Postmodern Buffet of Action Clichés
Irish playwright Martin McDonagh has gone Hollywood with Seven Psychopaths, an ultra-violent (and ultra-funny) deconstruction of the fast-talking, self-knowing crime capers that came into fashion with...
View ArticleThe Criterion Collection Stretches the Boundaries of Classic Cinema
What makes a classic film a classic? Landing on some critic’s list? Currency among cinephiles over time? One possible definition is inclusion in the Criterion Collection, the movie-nerd benchmark for...
View ArticleBen Affleck Continues His Winning Streak With Hostage Thriller 'Argo'
Ben Affleck's Gone Baby Gone and The Town were two of the best crime dramas to come out of America in the past decade—taut, claustrophobic tales of men and women straining at their leashes in the tiny,...
View ArticleStephen Chbosky's Teen Drama 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower' Uncovers...
If you don’t go into The Perks of Being a Wallflower at least a bit skeptical, you’re probably delusional. After all, most film dramas aimed at a teenage audience are either embarrassingly precious or...
View ArticleLives of the Artists: Two New Docs Offer Insight Into the Creative Life
In many ways, Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present (Music Box DVD) is a film about watching a woman sit nonreactive, silent, motionless in front of a parade of strangers for hours, for weeks, for...
View ArticleThe Visually Stunning 'Cloud Atlas' Juggles Six Stories (Somewhat) Successfully
em>Cloud Atlas is a spectacle, that much is for sure.
View ArticleWu-Tang Clan’s RZA Doesn’t Bring Much Ruckus With 'The Man With the Iron Fists'
The Man With the Iron Fists is a direct hit at a target audience, and damned if most of them won’t be on board from the moment bearded Chinese dudes start wailing on each other.
View ArticleSam Mendes and Daniel Craig Reinvigorate the Aged Bond Franchise With 'Skyfall'
Less than a year ago, the Mission: Impossible franchise offered Ghost Protocol as a new standard in name-brand espionage adventure; next to Skyfall, it looks kind of like an old James Bond movie.
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