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Reds
Published May 7, 2008
Call me an ingrate, but I cannot suppress the comment that Landmark Theatres have finally found a slot for Hou Hsiao-hsien only after the Taiwanese filmmaker made a film in France and in French, and long ...
Below the Fold
Published April 23, 2008
At the close of the Latino film festival last month, I used one festival film in particular (representative of several) as a club to beat up American filmmakers for their incapacity to treat serious, intimate, ...
Thing to Ponder
Published April 16, 2008
Under the imprimatur of Judd Apatow comes Forgetting Sarah Marshall, a comedy of heartbreak and heartmend. Apatow personally has directed only The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, but as a producer his name apparently has ...
Double-Barrel Published April 9, 2008
Should anyone be suffering symptoms of withdrawal as the “Seen on DVD” column gears down from weekly to monthly, let me share the latest accretions ... More Post a comment
Stones Published March 26, 2008
It takes a bit of cheek to call a film Flawless. Especially a Demi Moore film. In it, she carries that affixed chip on her ... More Comment (1)
North and South Published March 19, 2008
Two Mondays ago I saw two films. In the morning was the advance screening of the American indie, Snow Angels, scheduled to open locally a ... More Comment (1)
Found in Translation Published March 12, 2008
Attention all masochists. Funny Games is not what it sounds like. Not fun and games, not funny ha-ha, not charades and Mad Libs. It is ... More Post a comment
All the King's Women Published March 5, 2008
Extracted from a fat Philippa Gregory novel (the novel, that is, is fat), The Other Boleyn Girl doles out yet another installment in the long-running ... More Comment (1)
Not Much Appetite Published Feb. 27, 2008
Full plate, half-heartedly picked at: Be Kind Rewind. Twisted, tangled, snarled zaniness around a behind-the-times video store, facing foreclosure, in Passaic, N.J. An habitué of ... More Comment (1)
The Way It Was Published Feb. 20, 2008
Scouring the upcoming schedule for Landmark Theatres, from now through May, I find no mention of the current reissue of Alain Resnais’s 1961 Last Year ... More Post a comment
New Names Published Feb. 6, 2008
Thanks to an attractive cast, the creamy cinematography of John Bailey, and the light touch of writer and first-time director Jeff Lowell, Over Her Dead ... More Post a comment
The Show May Go On Published Jan. 30, 2008
By practice and principle, the Oscar nominations are not an occasion for me, as they are for so many in my fraternity, to guess the ... More Comment (1)
Party's Over Published Jan. 23, 2008
No matter how generally annoying a technical innovation or stylistic vogue might be (the telephoto lens, the zoom shot, rack focus, etc.), there will always ... More Comment (1)
Plain and Simple Published Jan. 16, 2008
And now for something completely different. Persepolis, from France and in French, is a cartoon recap of the comic-strip memoir by Marjane Satrapi, covering her ... More Post a comment
Blood and Ghosts Published Jan. 9, 2008
Somehow, somewhere, in my month-long move from Domicile A to Domicile B, my in-the-dark notes and first draft for a critique of There Will Be ... More Post a comment
Wring Out the Old Published Jan. 2, 2008
The best new movie I saw in the last twelve months was Private Fears in Public Places by the now eighty-five-year-old Alain Resnais. I saw ... More Post a comment
Last Call Published Dec. 27, 2007
Charlie Wilson's War. Didactic poli-sci lesson on How the System Works, entertainingly illustrated by screenwriter Aaron Sorkin and director Mike Nichols. The titular war is ... More Post a comment
Reputations at Stake Published Dec. 13, 2007
Underfoot in the Christmas rush: Margot at the Wedding is Noah Baumbach's somewhat disappointing follow-up to The Squid and the Whale, though maybe not so ... More Post a comment
A Place in the Shade Published Dec. 6, 2007
Where do I stand now on the Coen brothers? Or to step back a pace, where did I stand on them before No Country for ... More Post a comment
The Lost Weekends Published Nov. 29, 2007
Some sort of explanation, some sort of excuse, would seem to me (whether or not you) to be demanded for my two-week tardiness in getting ... More Post a comment
These Three Published Nov. 15, 2007
Oh, goody. Redacted, directed and written by Brian De Palma, is a high-def video pseudodocumentary, or if you prefer, humorless mockumentary, about some Marines in ... More Post a comment
Critical Time Published Nov. 8, 2007
Maybe I should have held off a couple of weeks before remarking on "the influx of topical piety into screen dramas." Lions for Lambs, arriving ... More Post a comment
Big Crooks and Little Published Nov. 1, 2007
Two ways to start a movie with a bang:In American Gangster, Denzel Washington lets us know right off the bat that he's a bad, bad, ... More Post a comment
Let's Get Serious Published Oct. 25, 2007
You can get a rough reading, if not an exact measure, of the unhappiness across the land simply by the upswing in axe-grinding documentaries (Sicko, ... More Post a comment
Thrillers Three Published Oct. 18, 2007
The title figure of Michael Clayton is the designated fixer for the elite Manhattan law firm of Kenner, Bach & Ledeen, touted as a "miracle ... More Post a comment
Brothers at Odds Published Oct. 11, 2007
One thing to be said for The Darjeeling Limited, and it's no small thing, is that the film bears an individual stamp. A stamp as ... More Post a comment
Bloat Published Oct. 4, 2007
Sean Penn's Into the Wild illustrates, in a sketchy hand, the Jon Krakauer nonfiction book on Christopher McCandless, a 1990 college graduate, on the doorstep ... More Post a comment
Business as Usual Published Sept. 27, 2007
Back into the "current," back into the flow, back into the rapids.... Across the Universe amounts to a two-and-a-quarter-hour promo for the Beatles without ever ... More Post a comment
The Queue Forms Here Published Sept. 20, 2007
Four months off duty, whether called a sabbatical or hooky, could hardly help but be a learning experience. Learning to use time unwisely. Learning to ... More Post a comment
The Unusual Suspects Published Sept. 13, 2007
Where were we? Ah, yes. I was driving up to L.A. on Cinco de Mayo to see the new Alain Resnais film, Private Fears in ... More Post a comment
Stop the World Published May 3, 2007
By the standard measurement of every seventh year, I figure I am due for my fifth sabbatical. So I will not apologize overmuch for taking ... More Post a comment
Week of the Dog Published April 26, 2007
Biding time till the summer bonanza.... Year of the Dog offers offbeat comedy (meaning that the audience is not orchestrated into fortissimo laughter, but left, ... More Post a comment
Glimmers Published April 19, 2007
Jonathan Kasdan becomes the second son of Lawrence Kasdan, after Jake, to have followed his father into the director's chair. His feature debut, In the ... More Post a comment
Twofer Published April 12, 2007
It sounded like a fun idea at first. Two movies in one, a prepackaged double feature, in emulation of, or tribute to, the Golden Age ... More Post a comment
Stop, Look, Listen Published April 5, 2007
Forget 300. That's a crib toy, a musical mobile, a distraction, a pacifier. 300 is for babies. The film that will test your Spartan hardihood ... More Post a comment
Better Acquainted Published March 29, 2007
The latest exhumation by Rialto Pictures, in glorious black-and-white, comes not from France, as has been the rule, but from Italy, and not from so ... More Post a comment
Side-Glances Published March 22, 2007
Squeezed between the Latino film festival and the NCAA basketball tournament: Shooter. A new Rambo for a new millennium. Marine Gunnery Sergeant Bob Lee Swagger ... More Post a comment
Paris in the Springtime Published March 15, 2007
Danièle Thompson, writer, director, is on her way to becoming a dependable purveyor of the pièce bien faite, the well-made play in the lineage of ... More Post a comment
Killer on the Loose Published March 8, 2007
The big question that hovers over Zodiac is not, Who's the Zodiac Killer? Nor is it, How did he elude capture? Nor, What ever became ... More Post a comment
Chained Malady Published March 1, 2007
Just a hair too late for Black History Month, and just as well, Black Snake Moan wriggles at the far edge of the socially acceptable. ... More Post a comment
Moonstruck Published Feb. 22, 2007
Even if you knew nothing else about it, the title alone of The Astronaut Farmer would prevent you from getting sucked in by the opening ... More Post a comment
Spy in the Ointment Published Feb. 15, 2007
Following up Shattered Glass with Breach, director Billy Ray has made a good start on a pet theme, the human, or peculiarly American, proclivity for ... More Post a comment
Thirteenth Month of the Year Published Feb. 1, 2007
The conventional wisdom that January is a graveyard for movies can only have sprung, and spread, from the media meccas. In the hinterlands between New ... More Post a comment
Movies reviewed this week: Venus, Le Petit Lieutenant, The Hitcher Published Jan. 25, 2007
It's a challenge to stay unspoiled after Children of Men and Letters from Iwo Jima on successive weeks. Many a week out of the year, ... More Post a comment
Balancing Act Published Jan. 18, 2007
Well, I can't say, along with so many others, that I preferred Letters from Iwo Jima to Flags of Our Fathers. My main misgiving about ... More Post a comment
The Mexican Connection Published Jan. 11, 2007
Truly, honestly, earnestly, I wanted to like Pan's Labyrinth. I wanted to see Guillermo del Toro, the migrant Mexican filmmaker, find his way back from ... More Post a comment
Good As It Got Published Jan. 4, 2007
In recognition of 21st-century reality, I might say that the best new film I saw in 2006 was Hou Hsiao-hsien's Café Lumière, the Taiwanese director's ... More Post a comment
Done Published Dec. 28, 2006
Final shovelful: Curse of the Golden Flower, more than just the best movie to reach our town for the holidays, is in some sense the ... More Post a comment
Snowed Under Published Dec. 21, 2006
The Christmas blizzard at full force, and no sign of letup: Dreamgirls. Broadway backstage musical -- not, that is to say, backstage on Broadway but ... More Post a comment
Maya Bad Published Dec. 7, 2006
Evidently Mel Gibson is in it only for the barbarity. Scouring the globe, roaming the pages of history, he has alighted in Apocalypto on the ... More Post a comment
Before It’s Too Late Published Nov. 30, 2006
Sorry to have been so slow to get to Shut Up and Sing, which earns pride of place this week on merit alone. Entering on ... More Post a comment
Few Thanks Published Nov. 22, 2006
Just to stay on top of the pile, in preference to under it: Little Children. Todd Field's sophomore directing effort, following up his quietly sensationalized ... More Post a comment
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