Movie Reviews
Emily Blunt is so sanely appealing that her honest touches rescue parts of The Five-Year Engagement, but not the movie. What could? Director Nicholas Stoller wrote it with actor Jason Segel, who gave himself a …
Last year, Inspector Bellamy. This year, Monsieur Lazhar. Both spiritually French, with an excellent central performance: Gerárd Depardieu as Bellamy, Mohamed Fellag as Lazhar. Philippe Falardeau’s French-Canadian movie dramatizes a teacher and students with exemplary …
My most surreal preview was in December, 1997. I sat alone in San Diego’s single-screen Cinema 21 in Mission Valley, surrounded by what seemed like 10,000 empty seats. The vast Titanic rolled over me, on …
It’s easy to imagine some Hollywood exec seeing certain scenes from Tarsem Singh’s The Fall and thinking, “Holy Tentpole, boys, here’s a director who has rediscovered the art of the breathtaking vista! And look what …
By the storm-surge law of openings, the weekly buzz of blab, this week’s column should lead with Wrath of the Titans or Mirror Mirror. They previewed too late for my use, but Matthew Lickona will …
Salmon and sushi this week, also poor sex and De Niro on the skids: Sheikh Muhammed of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen must have seen Lawrence of Arabia and then never forgot the Bedouin chief …
The problem is not that “they don’t make them like they used to.” The problem is that they continue to make them about what they used to, and they continue to make them the way …
’Tis a pity he’s a bore. That idea might creep up as you view the creepy Shakespearean “hero” of Coriolanus. Ralph Fiennes directed and stars as Rome’s General Caius Martius Coriolanus. A killing machine who …
Time to get out the good word a little early about In Darkness. It opens March 2, and serious, challenging movies such as this often have difficulty staying in theaters. It is no blockbuster, but …
The first era of 3-D gave us flying lances and tomahawks, but the thrill (like the fad) faded. The process was revived creatively by Werner Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams and Martin Scorsese’s Hugo. A …
My first reaction to The Woman in Black was “all nerves, no heart.” But I have a weakness for the sort of nerve-stretching that the film employs. The sort that comes from a long shot …
Another buzz-kill week at the movies: wolves, cancer, thoughts of Oscar. Oy vey (yes, let us prepare for the Jewish film festival). Joe Carnahan’s The Grey, about men pursued by Alaskan wolves, will not be …
Hollywood spends too much time and money turning tragedies into buckets of custard. In The Descendants, a coma crisis is sweetened by Hawaiian scenery and George Clooney’s breeze-along charm. In We Bought a Zoo, the …
Director Xavier Durringer imagines the political ascent of French president Nicolas Sarkozy. There is a touch of vulgar whimsy in the way the politicians phrase their frustration: “First the press licks you, then tricks you, …
A regular Top Ten feels skimpy for 2011. It was a good year at the movies, if you knew where to look. I offer 12 roses, some laurels, and a weed patch. Roses 1) Buck. …
The ritual Top Ten ceremony waits until next week, as we look at the last movie glimmers of 2011: There is a hellish episode in War Horse. The English stallion Joey, having endured over three …