Movie Reviews
Hidden addiction: 'Shame' evokes painful emotions
Published on Feb 22nd, 2012
0 comments Shame Director: Steve McQueenStarring: Michael Fassbender, Carey MulliganPlaying: Downtown~NC-17 - 101 min  There is a close-up in Shame of Michael Fassbender's face showing...
No happiness: Close brings out Albert's sad little life
Published on Feb 15th, 2012
0 comments I know a novel that begins: "This is the saddest story I've ever heard." Now here is one of the saddest movies I have ever seen. It is sad because a woman has chosen to lead her life in a way that is...
Relentless: Winter terror comes with fangs
Published on Feb 8th, 2012
1 comments "The Grey" is an unrelenting demonstration that wolves have no opinion. When they attack, it's not personal. They've spent untold millennia learning how to survive, naked and without weapons, in...
'The Artist' surprises and delights without a word
Published on Feb 2nd, 2012
0 comments Is it possible to forget that "The Artist" is a silent film in black and white and simply focus on it as a movie? No? That's what people seem to zero in on. They cannot imagine themselves seeing such...
'Red Tails' soars with entertainment but lacks meaning
Published on Jan 26th, 2012
0 comments The Tuskegee Airmen were a group of African-American fighter pilots who were trained despite the racism entrenched in the U.S. armed services at the time, were deployed in action, and achieved fame...
Not so 'Joyful': Parton, Latifah miss the note
Published on Jan 19th, 2012
0 comments Joyful Noise is an ungainly assembly of parts that don't fit, and the strange thing is that it makes no particular effort to please its target audience, which would seem to be lovers of gospel choirs...
Who's the mole? 'Tinker Tailor' complex, atmospheric
Published on Jan 12th, 2012
0 comments Yes, we imagine, international espionage is probably pretty much like this. No thrilling car chases and no big action sections, but rather a series of weary men, smoking and drinking tea or whisky,...
Award whinnying? War Horse shows Spielberg talent
Published on Jan 5th, 2012
1 comments The closing shots of Steven Spielberg's War Horse will stir emotions in every serious movie lover. The sky is painted with a deeply red-orange sunset. A lone rider is seen far away on the horizon....
In 2011: The ten or eleven best films
Published on Dec 22nd, 2011
0 comments Making lists is not my favorite occupation. They inevitably inspire only reader complaints. Not once have I ever heard from a reader that my list was just fine and they liked it. Yet an annual Best...
Mission accomplished: Fourth film 'cruising' for success
Published on Dec 22nd, 2011
0 comments Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol is a terrific thriller with action sequences that function as a kind of action poetry. The best one has Tom Cruise hanging more than 100 stories up on the glass...
Reitman's return: 'Young Adult' showcases talent
Published on Dec 14th, 2011
0 comments They must have closed their eyes and crossed their fingers while they were making this film. It breaks with form, doesn't follow our expectations, and is about a heroine we like less at the end than...
Muppet madness: Henson's handiwork back with panache
Published on Dec 8th, 2011
0 comments The popularity of the Muppets is given new life in The Muppets, a funny, wickedly self-aware musical that opens by acknowledging they've outlived their shelf life. There's some truth in that; this is...
Clooney's best: 'Descendants' a four-star hit
Published on Dec 1st, 2011
0 comments The Descendants has a happy ending. Therefore technically it's a comedy. It takes place in the paradise of Hawaii. It stars George Clooney. That may lead you to expect a pleasant good time, but this...
Modern apocalypse: Von Trier's 'Melancholia' stares death down
Published on Nov 24th, 2011
0 comments Lars von Trier's "Melancholia" opens with music from Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde," mourning and apocalyptic, and disturbing images of a world not right. A woman dressed as a bride runs through a...
Gorgeous drivel: 'Immortals' delivers beauty, not story
Published on Nov 17th, 2011
0 comments Immortals is without doubt the best-looking awful movie you will ever see. Eiko Ishioka's costume designs alone deserve an Oscar nomination. "They weren't at all historically accurate," grumbled a...
Gere'd up: 'The Double' could use twice the plot
Published on Nov 8th, 2011
0 comments It takes The Double less than half an hour to reveal who the double is. That's if you're lucky enough to avoid the movie's trailer, which just comes right out and tells you. At that point, Peggy Lee...
High stakes: 'In Time' an intriguing premise
Published on Nov 3rd, 2011
0 comments We are all of us engaged in the trade of buying and selling time. When we stop smoking, we hope we are buying years. When we drink and drive, we are willing to sell a few years. But those are gambles...
Big hit: But kinda stale taste in Para 3
Published on Oct 27th, 2011
0 comments "Paranormal Activity 3" is a prequel, revealing that the characters in "PA1" and "PA2" had already been through the all-night video surveillance ordeal. At least in this film they are undergoing it...
Retread: 'Footloose' remake out of step
Published on Oct 19th, 2011
2 comments There's one thing to be said for a remake of a 1984 movie that uses the original screenplay. This 2011 version is so similar – sometimes song for song and line for line – that I was...
Masterful thriller: Shannon shows gifts in 'Take Shelter'
Published on Oct 12th, 2011
2 comments Here is a frightening thriller based not on special effects gimmicks but on a dread that seems quietly spreading in the land: that the good days are ending, and climate changes or other sinister...
Cruel odds: 50/50 finds humor in cancer
Published on Oct 5th, 2011
0 comments Young people should not get sick and die. Most of us do eventually, but how sad it is to learn in your 20s that you have a dangerous cancer and your chances of survival are 50/50. How crueler still...
Gripping: 'Moneyball' not just for sports fans
Published on Sep 28th, 2011
0 comments In the 2002 season, the nation's lowest-paid Major League Baseball team put together a 20-game winning streak, setting a new American League record. The team began that same season with 11 losses in...
Visceral, disturbing: 'Straw Dogs' remake better than the first
Published on Sep 21st, 2011
1 comments This new version of Straw Dogs is a reasonably close adaptation of the 1971 film by Sam Peckinpah. Change the location from England to Mississippi, change a mathematician into a screenwriter, keep...
Gone viral: 'Contagion' a horrifying possibility
Published on Sep 14th, 2011
0 comments A black screen. The sound of a harsh cough. We are already alert when, soon after, we see a bartender pick up a customer's coin and then punch numbers into a cash register. Germs, we're thinking....
Lies and deceit: Mirren shines in 'The Debt'
Published on Sep 6th, 2011
0 comments The Debt weaves a tangled web of lies and deceptions around a seemingly heroic raid in 1965 carried out by three agents of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency known for more ability than it...
Fear inspiring: 'Don't be Afraid' a horror classic
Published on Aug 31st, 2011
0 comments Haunted house movies awaken within us the 5-year-old afraid to go down the stairs with the basement lights off. Sure, there's a light switch down at the bottom, but you never know. Don't Be Afraid of...
Grunts and screams: 'Conan' not so literate
Published on Aug 24th, 2011
4 comments Conan the Barbarian involves the clash of civilizations whose vocabularies are limited to screams, oaths, grunts, howls, ejaculations, exclamations, vulgarities, screeches, wails, bellows, yelps and...
Feel good? 'Help' glosses over pain of Jim Crow
Published on Aug 17th, 2011
0 comments The Help is a safe film about a volatile subject. Presenting itself as the story of how African-American maids in the South viewed their employers during Jim Crow days, it is equally the story of how...
Unfunny and foul: 'Change-up' your plans before seeing this
Published on Aug 10th, 2011
7 comments The Change-Up is one of the dirtiest-minded mainstream releases in history. It has a low opinion of men, a lower opinion of women, and the lowest opinion of the intelligence of its audience. It is...
Real deal: Kunis, Timberlake show comic chops
Published on Jul 27th, 2011
0 comments Friends with Benefits follows romcom formulas as if directed on autopilot, but that's not to say it isn't fun. This is the second movie this year to ask whether it's possible to have sex with someone...