Movie Reviews
Just to keep pace with the fast-breaking developments, a quick timeout from basketball: Chloe. A renaming and reworking by Atom Egoyan of the French film Nathalie by Anne Fontaine. Despite the pedigree (Egoyan, if you …
In between films at the San Diego Latino Film Festival, I can spare but passing glances at the world outside. And with the NCAA basketball tournament added this Thursday to the ongoing festival, we can’t …
Well, you wouldn’t expect Tim Burton to do a remake of Pollyanna, would you? Or Little Women or Anne of Green Gables or anything that might push back against the enveloping voguish “darkness,” anything that …
In contention for the foreign-film Oscar, in contention to be exact for two more days after its debut on Friday at the Landmark Hillcrest, A Prophet is a sort of Prisoner’s Progress, a brutal and …
Major filmmakers, minor films: Martin Scorsese, Roman Polanski, Shutter Island and The Ghost Writer respectively. “Disturbing” would be one word for the Scorsese, maybe the best word. Leonardo DiCaprio, the director’s torchbearer now in four …
Jessica Alba, Kathy Bates, Jessica Biel, Bradley Cooper, Eric Dane, Patrick Dempsey, Hector Elizondo, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Topher Grace, Anne Hathaway, Ashton Kutcher, Queen Latifah, Taylor Lautner, George Lopez, Shirley MacLaine, Emma Roberts, Julia …
It seems impossible to speak of Mel Gibson’s “comeback” in Edge of Darkness without speaking of what it is he is coming back from. But speaking strictly, the aftermath of his arrest for drunk driving …
Revivals aside, we are lucky to get one black-and-white film a year. So we must count ourselves lucky, already in January, to get Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon, a common choice in cultural hubs as …
First let me confess. I do not know what I’m talking about. Anything naive, ill-informed, mistaken in what follows will be admitted freely without need of threat or torture. I am confident I speak for …
Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart is pretty much the whole show. His Bad Blake, given name to be held back for the gravestone, is an over-the-hill and down-on-his-luck C&W singer still living the life of …
One thing seems clear. The surprise announcement in June of the expansion of the Oscars’ Best Picture category to ten nominees, a virtual Ten Best list exclusive of foreign films (not just second-class citizens but …
The last of the last. A Single Man. The Christmas movie for holiday depressives (who after all deserve one, too), an adaptation of the Christopher Isherwood novel detailing the planned last day of a homosexual …
The reviewer of Avatar seems honor-bound to declare which Avatar he is reviewing. Me? 2-D, no. 3-D, yes. IMAX, no. I’m in no position to gauge the differences. Viewers who opt for 2-D, and for …
Here they come, “for your consideration,” clear through Christmas, elbowing each other to the finish line. So consider in haste. Invictus takes its title from the Henley poem of the same name: “my unconquerable soul... …
On the Thanksgiving menu: Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, which I was horrified to see is the verbatim title on screen and not just promotional overkill, would qualify as the year’s worst …
Through Independence Day and Godzilla, pre-9/11, and The Day after Tomorrow post-9/11, transplanted German filmmaker Roland Emmerich has inched closer to the edge of the abyss for a view of the apocalypse. In 2012, which …