Movie Reviews
As Before Midnight draws near to its titular hour, Jesse (Ethan Hawke) gets a mid-argument chance to make a list of his beloved Celine’s (July Delpy) flaws. “Well, for starters, you’re fucking crazy,” he begins …
If you’ve already had your fill of illusory summer movie magic, why not set aside the comic books and spend some time watching the Iron Man of misrepresentation. In the hands of crackerjack conjurer Ricky …
Star Trek into Darkness is a showcase for director J.J. Abrams at his most J.J. Abrams-y. Do you identify Abrams by his fondness for lens flares? You will not be disappointed. Lens Flare spends enough …
Anyone who’s seen the screamy, thudding trailers for Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby knows that it is not a paint-by-numbers cinematic re-presentation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s elegant, economic novel. The numbers are there, of course: …
Iron Man 3 is, like its hero Tony Stark at the outset and Stark’s girlfriend Pepper Potts at another point in the story, a hot mess. It does what third installments tend to do: revisit …
In order to help underwrite their addiction to steroids and dumbbells (and also to impress the bitches), a trio of meathead bodybuilders resorts to a life of crime by kidnapping an unscrupulous Florida businessman (Tony …
"Why do we come back down?” asks Marina (Olga Kurylenko) in Terrence Malick’s To the Wonder. Why, after mounting to transcendence, do we sink back willy-nilly into everything we sought to transcend? To take an …
Television veteran Chadwick Boseman gives a fine, canny performance in 42 as Jackie Robinson, the man who broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. Well, except for when he talks …
The studio rep described it as “Dreamgirls, only happier.” A stop at the concession stand to pick up an air-sickness bag seemed in order. Well, blow me down! The Sapphires is a feel good movie …
How do you say Neil Simon in French? A professional sperm donor, going by the name Starbuck (Patrick Huard), anonymously fathers what amounts to his own chapter of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Canada. Eventually, …
Lore is a loser’s history of World War II, a less fantastical, more moving post-apocalyptic wasteland film out of Australia than the one that starred Mel Gibson back in 1979. Less fantastical because it’s set …
Like Someone in Love is a logical follow-up to Abbas Kiarostami’s Certified Copy (2010). From its opening long take — the lead character speaks from outside the frame — the director’s sleight of hand draws …
The production notes for Oz the Great and Powerful came with a heads-up: “Please note that this movie stands alone and shouldn’t be compared to any other versions of the Oz films.” I’m fine with …
A friend who saw it in Cannes apprised me of the situation: No was Pablo Larrain’s bid for commercialism. If using an old-fangled 1983 U-matic video camera to shoot a 2012 re-creation of the 1988 …
Werner Herzog just happened upon a friend who was screening four films about professional trappers in the Siberian taiga, tradesmen who for centuries have used the same system of capturing animals because they are “unable …
In the interest of objectivity, I suppose I should start out by saying that it’s difficult for me to be objective about John Dies at the End. It hits too many buttons for me to …