Cynthia Fuchs

PopMatters Film and TV Editor

About Cynthia Fuchs

Cynthia Fuchs is director of Film & Media Studies, as well as Associate Professor of English, African American Studies, and Film & Video Studies, at George Mason University. She has published articles on Buffy and Dark Angel; Shakira; Jay-Z; Brad Pitt in Thelma and Louise; Taxi Driver; hip-hop, Michael Jackson, Prince, Juvenile and Cash Money, “gangsta rap”, the Spice Girls, queer punks, alternative masculinities in rock, “bad” kids in Bully and George Washington, the war in Iraq, and Vietnam war movies. She edited Spike Lee: Interviews (University of Mississippi Press 2002), and co-edited Between the Sheets, In the Streets: Queer, Lesbian, and Gay Documentary (University of Minnesota 1997). She is currently co-editing “Iraq War Cultures” and writing a book on Iraq war documentaries. 

Features

Best Complexities in 2008

The most remarkable films of 2008 were small, smart, and complicated. While they're surely worth seeking out for their own pleasures, they also represent the sort of movies that will find theatrical releases even harder to manage in the shrinking economy. [16 January 2009]

The Best Movies of 2007

Fuchs' picks for the year's best movies reveal the difficulty of the quest, uncovering in their seeming failures more remarkable potentials. [18 January 2008]

Ken Burns’ Arithmetic of War: ‘The War’ Premieres Tonight

To its credit, The War considers the terrible effects of difference. But even as it argues that representations can make differences, it also exemplifies how limited vision can reinforce them. [21 September 2007]

“God’s Warriors”: Raging Fires

Christiane Amanpour does not back down from difficult questions. She opens her six-hour report, airing over three nights on CNN, by noting that Jerusalem, the "so-called city of peace, has been torn by centuries of war." [21 August 2007]

Time Is Standing Still: White Light/Black Rain

HBO's new Hiroshima and Nagasaki documentary is at once simple and infinitely complex. The atomic bombs were disasters both man-made and calculated. [6 August 2007]

Unbridled with Life: Interview with Mira Nair

With The Namesake, based on Jhumpa Lahiri's popular novel, Mira Nair has found an ideal subject -- a family full of complex characters who spend their lives traversing traditions and expectations. [22 March 2007]

Paul Robeson: Showing a Little Grit

Today, Paul Robeson seems impossible. How could one man have accomplished so much, commanded such respect, be so large and legendary, even during his lifetime? [8 March 2007]

Dixie-chicked

Introducing the Chicks' Grammys performance, Joan Baez called them "three brave women who are still 'not ready to make nice.'" It may be the long way, but it's the right way too. [20 February 2007]

A Symbol of Transition: Interview with Guillermo del Toro

Guillermo del Toro: It's not like there was no cruelty before or no brutality before. But the fact that now people can go out in the open about it, publicly, and not be shamed, even be proud of it!? I think it's a very dark time right now. [11 January 2007]

War Stories: Top 12 Films of 2006

You hardly needed to duck into theaters to see war images this year. And yet, there it they were. War stories made for some of the most gripping, provocative, and outraged offerings of 2006. [10 January 2007]

Ballers, Shot Callers

The 'problem' of hip-hop thus seems inherent -- it's a means to sell something, consumption as a means to identity, for players as much as fans. While most consumers presume they make choices, this circulation of signs suggests otherwise. [2 December 2004]

Real News

Perhaps Stewart and the Daily Show faux journalists offer something more like a traditional Fourth Estate's resistance to spin and message. Occasionally, they even push boundaries of what 'news' might do, encourage consumers to be skeptical and pissed off. [2 November 2004]

PopMatters Television Feature

'I believe that George Bush and Saddam Hussein are both behaving in an irresponsible manner,' says Madonna. 'So, in that respect, they're alike.' [22 June 2004]

Distraction TV

With the little matter of the Super Bowl Halftime Show to get over, Janet Jackson did what she had to do. She returned to TV. [19 April 2004]

You Gotta Work Your Jelly

The newest video, for 'Crazy in Love,' begins with a hailing by Jay: 'History in the making.' Again, the process of work comes into focus, and again, Beyoncé's body becomes its undeniable emblem. [24 July 2003]

And Now He’s Got the Stubble

When Michael Jackson calls Tony Mottola 'devilish' or dangles his baby, the media grind into high gear for weeks. [10 February 2003]

Killing Machine

This past weekend's TV (25-27 Oct 2002) has been rife with efforts to describe, reframe, and sensationalize the sniper story. [28 October 2002]

Ain’t Trickin’ Me

As soon as word got out that Left Eye was dead, the news-and-entertainment industry kicked into a depressingly familiar gear. [2 May 2002]

It goes on and on and on

Criticism is product too, absorbed and deployed by the machine, as a sign of genius and innovation (like Cobain or Biggie Smalls), and also as a product to be sold, to be sucked back into the ever-envelope-pushing machine. Aaliyah is part of it, yes. [10 September 2001]

The Zen of Mike Tyson

'What in the world is fascinating about me, besides I fight and beat people spectacularly. Other than that, what's so fascinating about me?' You have to hand it to Mike Tyson -- this is exactly the right question to ask. [26 April 2001]

No More Puff Daddy

But even if we can see that hiphop has survived even Puff Daddy, an obvious, if not exactly pressing, question remains: how did he ever sell so many records? [11 April 2001]

Juvenile

works hard. And he sounds tired: his voice is low and slow, his manner wary. He's talking to me on the phone from Louisiana's Cash Money Records office, where he's been at it all day, being polite with interviewers and promoting his third Cash Money solo album, Tha G-Code. [1 January 1995]

Rapping is Good Therapy: Interview with Ice Cube

The music legends talks to PopMatters about hip-hop in culture, sports brawls and his successful acting career.

“Words Won’t Bring Us Down”: Best Music Videos of 2002

Music videos are an ever-evolving means of self-representation and social commentary. They're here and gone so quickly, it's sometimes difficult to keep track, especially of the ones that MTV doesn't deign to rotate ad nauseam. Still, exceptional vids keep coming.

The Emotion of History: Interview with Rob Cohen, Director of Stealth

We're at a crossroads in terms of how American policy will be affected by technology in war.

There Wasn’t a Front Line: Interview with Michael Tucker and Jon Powers

The director discusses his new film Gunner Palace, a documentary about U.S. troops in Baghdad, during two months in 2003.

The Wedding Planner

Matthew McConaughey has been a Redskins fan since he was four years old. He thinks it started with watching late-night movies on tv, when he rooted for the 'Indians' against the cowboys.

Boys Don’t Cry

Kimberly Peirce looks right at you when she talks. And it's hard to look away from her, with her striking eyes and cool blue streaks in her near-black hair. She likes to talk, too. Really talk. She laughs easily, thinks hard, and wants to ask questions as much as answer them. She's talking a lot these days, promoting her first feature, .

Love & Basketball

Omar Epps has his hotel bed pillows on the sofa, so he can lean into them while he talks to you. But two minutes into the interview, he's sitting up and facing you, enthusiastically punctuating his points with his hands.

Made

: When you hear the name Jon Favreau, you'll probably remember that he's the guy who wrote and starred in 'Swingers'.

Something Else New: Interview with John Singleton

Nobody wanted to make this movie because it was about a pimp. So I gave them the finger and said, I'm doing it anyway.

The Visit

Smooth and unstoppable, he's not one to rest on his laurels, but likes to stay busy.

Before Night Falls

Julian Schnabel is what you might call an intense personality. He talks in large hunks of prose, language that is layered roaming, attentive to the details of the surfaces around him. He has a grand sensibility, full of passion and unstoppable opinion.

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai

Forest Whitaker is as cool as you'd want him to be, thoughtful and wise, of course, but also attentive and gracious.

The Brothers

In person, Morris Chestnut looks a lot like he does on magazine covers and on movie screens -- good-looking of course, but also self-confident and relaxed.

Sunshine State

Sayles has been praised for his independence and his enthusiasm for his work; he is also, unusually, a white filmmaker who deals consistently and repeatedly with race, as well as class, sex, and other issues.

Piñero

That's really the problem that people of color are up against: they're working within a system that still doesn't acknowledge them as equal.

Faith in Free Trade: Interview with the Yes Men

They're campaigning for the President, on a bus for Bush, soliciting pledges from patriots. Look out.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

', is his first, and he is its director, writer, and star.

Scary Movie 2

: Shawn puts it this way: ''Scary Movie' is about pop culture, 'Menace' is about urban culture, and 'I'm Gonna Get You Sucka' is about urban throwback.'

The Ninth Gate

Roman Polanski is gracious and soft-spoken on the telephone from Paris. Once notorious for his eccentricity, ego, and offscreen misfortunes, the Polish director-writer-actor now seems, at 67, almost serene, or comfortable, as if he's come to terms with his genius and his excess.

Bring It to People: Interview with the Murderball Filmmakers

Alternately slouching, perched forward, and animated in their chairs, the filmmakers pick up on one another's points, ask each other questions. At the moment, they're talking about Murderball, their documentary about quadriplegic rugby.

Thirteen

Catherine Hardwicke talks about her film Thirteen, which is so different from other teen movies, except that the characters are flawed (and remain so), and the adults actually care about what the kids are going through.

The Caveman’s Valentine

'' is populated with characters who don't get much play in mainstream movies -- the homeless, a crazy man, sexualized middle-aged characters, interracial sex, a black woman with a gun, gay men, and an upscale art scene, all in a film that's considerably bigger than your first one. Was it difficult to put all these elements together.

The Green Mile

Michael Clarke Duncan is happy. He's happy to be starring in with Tom Hanks, to be sitting in a nice hotel room wearing white socks and designer jeans and no shoes. He's especially happy with his role in the film...

Girlfight

At first glance, Karyn Kusama's looks like a pretty regular festival 'darling' picture: it's the writer-director's debut feature, it's about a young Latina in the projects who overcomes her unhappy home situation to succeed in an unusual and topical arena (boxing), and finds true love to boot.

The Way of the Gun

Ryan Phillippe has the new Wyclef CD on the coffee table in his hotel room. He likes the album, especially the Mary J. Blige track, but thinks the Kenny Rogers is a little silly.

Save the Last Dance

Sean Patrick Thomas is one of the more genuinely polite people I've met. He stands up to shake my hand when I arrive and leave. He acts as if he actually wants to be here, in this hotel lobby two days after Christmas, talking about his job.

15 Minutes

Former Chicago cop Dennis Farina still lives on the Windy City's North Side, because, he says, there's no other place like it. It's clear, though, from his relaxed posture in a sitting room at the Beverly Hills Four Seasons, that he also doesn't mind traveling.

Bend it Like Beckham

I came into films initially on this platform to challenge the representation of women and people of color in the media.

A Garrison State: Interview with Eugene Jarecki, Why We Fight

'What kind of society are we living in when the best opportunity for a young person is to take a job that might cost the life of himself or of another?'

Series 7: The Contenders

Daniel Minahan and Brooke Smith sit across from me in one of those bizarre hotel suites that are part comfy lounge area, part board room.

Biggie & Tupac

All of these stories in 'Biggie & Tupac' are about the same thing: the position of black Americans has not moved enormously from the Civil Rights days.

Kissing Jessica Stein

Westfeldt and Juergensen are very easy with each other, a result of spending lots of time together since they met at a 5-day theater lab in 1996.

Blow

I walk in on Ted Demme as he's wolfing down a sandwich.

An Absence of Framework: An Interview with Michael Winterbottom

The 'war on terror' allows them to keep keeping people at Guantánamo until they decide the war on terror is over. So they've taken something that's an abstract idea that can actually go on forever, and that will, on a policy level, affect when people can be released.

Reindeer Games

John Frankenheimer has been making movies for over thirty years, and yet he remains passionate about his work.

Dogtown and Z-Boys

Stacy Peralta, winner of the 2001 Sundance Film Festival Director's Award, wears a sweatshirt and sneakers.

Bamboozled

Spike Lee has established a reputation as an innovative and intelligent artist and provocative cultural critic.

Judy Berlin

Eric Mendelsohn is a quiet guy, thoughtful and self-reflective. His first feature film - which won the 35-year-old Mendelsohn the Directing Award at 1999's Sundance Film Festival and was an official selection in the Cannes Festival's 1999 Un Certain Regard - is a carefully observation of suburban self-delusions and truths.

Drumline

[As a director,] you have to let spontaneity and chaos live with you, and be able to pick and choose.

A More Athletic Approach: An Interview with Werner Herzog

The 63-year-old filmmaker doesn't count talking about his work among his favorite activities -- as he puts it, 'I have a more physical approach than a cerebral approach, a more athletic approach' -- but he remains enthused about his new documentary, Grizzly Man.

Urbania

Made for only $225,000 and shot in 18 days, '' tells the story of a young man, Charlie (Dan Futterman), recovering from a terrible trauma, trying to make sense of the loss of control that he's feeling, and for Shear, New York offered appropriate mystery, randomness, and danger.

Sugar & Spice

Marla Sokoloff may be best known for playing the sorta punky Lucy Hatcher on David E. Kelley's popular series, 'The Practice'.

The Pianist

Roman doesn't even like using a stand-in.

The Caveman’s Valentine

The difficult part for me was that Sheila was so isolated. She would always appear in the scene, and everything would go into an extremely slow motion.

Ararat

All this is new for the 42-year-old Egoyan, whose work is characteristically deliberate, elegant, and above all, exploring relationships between art and interpretation.

Bowling for Columbine

I ask myself, 'Are you sitting at the Ritz doing interviews or are you working on that 9-11 film you're supposed to be making, to make sure that Bush isn't returned?'

The Way of the Gun

Chris McQuarrie doesn't look like someone from Hollywood. He doesn't wear black, his face is pleasant and his voice soft and deliberate, without the speed and breathlessness that afflict folks who spend too much time inside the business.

Atanarjuat, The Fast Runner

The John Wayne figure, in Inuit culture, is socially irresponsible.

The Way of the Gun

Chris McQuarrie doesn't look like someone from Hollywood. He doesn't wear black, his face is pleasant and his voice soft and deliberate, without the speed and breathlessness that afflict folks who spend too much time inside the business.

Better Luck Tomorrow

I didn't want the characters to have to explain why they exist. I don't feel like I have to do that.

The Time Machine

Samantha Mumba sits in a hard-backed chair: perfect posture, perfect makeup, perfect smile.

Everybody’s Famous!

Dominique Deruddere seems like the ideal dad.

Brother

The 28-year-old Brooklyn native began writing plays when he was just ten years old, and his first starring film role was also his first film role.

Kingdom Come

Smooth and unstoppable, he's not one to rest on his laurels, but likes to stay busy.

Evolution

Sean Patrick Thomas is one of the more genuinely polite people I've met. He stands up to shake my hand when I arrive and leave. He acts as if he actually wants to be here, in this hotel lobby two days after Christmas, talking about his job.

Genghis Blues

The story of San Francisco-based blues singer Paul Pena's journey to Tuva, a teeny republic in the heart of Asia, is certainly strange and wondrous. Still, given the obscurity of almost every element involved, the story probably wouldn't strike most people as the ideal material for a first film.

Sexy Beast

It was a little alarming playing a bad actor, because I used to be a bad transvestite, and I've spent years trying to get away from that, trying to be someone whom people might look at and say, 'Hey, I wish I could have that look!

The Replacements

Orlando Jones is a bit of a surprise.

The Princess and the Warrior

: For their new movie, 'The Princess and the Warrior', Tykwer and Potente worked together on the script, developing the complicated relationship between her character, the psychiatric nurse Sissi, and an emotionally damaged ex-soldier named Bodo (Benno Furmann).

Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter Jr.

Errol Morris makes disturbing, lyrical, powerful nonfiction films, and he has a lot to say about them.

Magnolia

Paul Thomas Anderson describes his new film, , in language that only seems simple. He's obviously excited about it, glad to have it released and to be talking about it, which, he observes, is part of the process.

The Luzhin Defence

It wasn't actually the novel that attracted me, it was the script.

Bring It Alive: Interview with Michael Radford

The director of Il Postino talks to PopMatters about his new Shakespeare adaptation The Merchant of Venice.

The Five Senses

Jeremy Podeswa speaks softly and wears dark clothes. He looks like an artist, like he lives in the city and spends his time in galleries or movie theaters, feeling super-aware of his environment and the people in it, as sounds, colors, and lines, mysteries and motivations.

Auto Focus

'Hollywood didn't make Good Bob go bad, but it helped Bad Bob come out.'

Lost in a Sea of Trivia: Interview with Niels Mueller

The director of the new Sean Penn film, The Assassination of Richard Nixon, talks to PopMatters about his interests in history and the kind of hopeless rage that erupts in violence.

The Deep End

Tilda Swinton likes to talk, laugh, and make jokes about the strange and wonderful business she's in. She's a lot of fun.

A Knight’s Tale

It was a little alarming playing a bad actor, because I used to be a bad transvestite, and I've spent years trying to get away from that, trying to be someone whom people might look at and say, 'Hey, I wish I could have that look!

Down to Earth

Chris Rock comes into the Presidential Suite at the Hyatt Regency in Washington DC. His 'people' are already there, the people who set up his schedule and look out for him.

About A Boy

Different as they may be, and they are, Chris and Paul Weitz appreciate the specific weirdness that each brings to their relationship, as brothers and filmmakers.

The Cat’s Meow

Once touted as a brilliant young artist, whose 'The Last Picture Show' (1971) evidenced both a youthful sensibility and tender nostalgia, Bogdanovich counted among his friends Orson Welles and John Ford.

All the Real Girls

People think the movie's supposed to come to you. But we're more like, 'We're going to wait over here, and if you want to come in, okay.'

The Good Girl

I like it when a character is irrational, when a character does contradictory things. I feel like it wakes you up, because you're trying to connect the dots.

The Good Thief

I find it very easy to go from, say, a lit, pleasurable environment, to a very dark place.

Shadow of the Vampire

It was a little alarming playing a bad actor, because I used to be a bad transvestite, and I've spent years trying to get away from that, trying to be someone whom people might look at and say, 'Hey, I wish I could have that look!

Like Zorro’s Mask: An Interview with Wim Wenders

Wenders' new film Don't Come Knocking, his second project with Sam Shepard, 'deconstructs' the myths of the American West, this time with Shepard starring as cowboy movie star Howard Spence, as well as a writing the script.

Thirteen Days

Sean Patrick Thomas is one of the more genuinely polite people I've met. He stands up to shake my hand when I arrive and leave. He acts as if he actually wants to be here, in this hotel lobby two days after Christmas, talking about his job.

Snatch

Former Chicago cop Dennis Farina still lives on the Windy City's North Side, because, he says, there's no other place like it. It's clear, though, from his relaxed posture in a sitting room at the Beverly Hills Four Seasons, that he also doesn't mind traveling.

Reviews

The Twilight Saga: New Moon

As she ponders her future, Bella is less aware than you are that she has very similar effects on the monster boy rivals for her affection -- glowing eyes, rising tempers, pronounced teeth, ungodly strength, usually demonstrated on others of their ilk or furniture. [20 November 2009]

The Blind Side

The pile-on of big emotional moments, accompanied by big music, is overwhelming. This is a movie demanding to be loved.

Terror in Mumbai

Dan Reed's documentary traces the events of those three days in Mumbai last November by using the recorded conversations as well as local footage, some shot by the journalists who arrived on the scene long before police or the Indian Coast Guard or Navy appeared. [19 November 2009]

Independent Lens: No Subtitles Necessary: László & Vilmos

Tracing the entwined careers of influential cinematographers Vilmos Zsigmond and László Kovács, No Subtitles Necessary: László & Vilmos is entertaining, sometimes flatfooted, and often illuminating. [18 November 2009]

Frontline: A Death in Tehran

A Death in Tehran pieces together the short life of 26-year-old Neda Soltan, but mostly considers the effects of her death, captured by a cell phone camera. [17 November 2009]

Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival

The documentaries of this year's Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival show more than they tell, underlining how each story is shaped not only by subject's self-presentations, but also by the films' frames. [16 November 2009]

The Prisoner

As soon as Six asks how to get out, at the start of AMC's The Prisoner, you know where he's headed.

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Intergenerational dilemmas -- how to be foxes, to be individuals and also parts of communities -- form the complicated heart of Fantastic Mr. Fox. [13 November 2009]

2012

As the action becomes less fabulous and more repetitive over 2012's 150 minutes, the philosophical debate ratchets up.

Pirate Radio

Pirate Radio leaves out any mention of the usual historical and cultural background, say, sex as a potential means of mixing races and classes.

Tattooed Under Fire

The idea of an uncertain future affects most of the soldiers in Tattooed Under Fire, whether looking back on their recent service or forward to a first or next tour. [12 November 2009]

Pray the Devil Back to Hell

Pray the Devil Back to Hell vividly conveys the pain endured and resistance mounted by women of diverse backgrounds and faiths during Liberia's civil war.

The Good Soldier

The familiar format of The Good Soldier helps to underscore what's extraordinary about the veterans' stories. [11 November 2009]

POV: The Way We Get By

The Way We Get By focuses on the troop greeters' mix of loneliness and determination, the pleasure of feeling needed and the pain of growing old.

Copyright Criminals

Comprised of split screens, overlapping and overlaid sounds, an assemblage of images and noise, Copyright Criminals effectively stages its argument even as it makes it. [10 November 2009]

Death Bell (Gosa)

Death Bell's tight focus on students' fears embodied is elegant even as it's unsettling. [9 November 2009]

Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire

Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire is concerned with lasting effects -- on individuals and especially, on communities. [6 November 2009]

The Men Who Stare at Goats

Setting up easy targets, The Men Who Stare at Goats seems less clever than behind the times.

The Fourth Kind

Where is Fox Mulder when you need him?

Act of God

It's all but impossible to represent randomness. And yet this is the task taken up by Act of God, Jennifer Baichwal's documentary on lightning. [5 November 2009]

La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet (La danse: Le ballet de l’Opéra de Paris)

Work is at the center of Frederick Wiseman's absorbing documentary, La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet. [4 November 2009]

By the People: The Election of Barack Obama

Now that the U.S. government looks mired in acrimony and frustration, it's good to remember when change seemed inevitable. [3 November 2009]

The Maid (La Nana)

Full of tension, the first scene in The Maid (La Nana) sets up Raquel's grim and limited world. [2 November 2009]

The People v. Leo Frank

The People v. Leo Frank indicts not only the shoddy police work and lawyering, but also the public hysteria advanced by local newspapers.

Loot

A treasure hunter who has travelled far and wide looking for long-lost fortunes, Lance Larson's questing serves as point of departure for the beguiling documentary, Loot.

Labor Day

Labor Day celebrates the work of SEIU toward getting Barack Obama elected. [30 October 2009]

The House of the Devil

While Sam's retaliation offers its own pleasures, her fundamental good-girlness, like Laurie Strode's or Rosemary Woodhouse's, also makes her abuse seem broadly meaningful.

Independent Lens: Journals of a Wily School

The first shot in Journals of a Wily School is filled with pockets, in motion, on a crowded sidewalk in Kolkata. [29 October 2009]

This Is It

As much as This Is It recalls Jackson's genius, it perpetuates the exploitation that shaped his life. [28 October 2009]

Frontline: Close to Home

Like many of the subjects in this week's Frontline, Close to Home, Emma and Andy are surprised to feel uncertain about money. [27 October 2009]

The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers

The Most Dangerous Man in America traces Daniel Ellsberg's decision to release the Pentagon Papers, as it also raises questions concerning government and citizens' responsibilities and rights. [26 October 2009]

Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant

Not a thing in this movie is subtle, from its cheesy special effects to its by-the-numbers storyline to its cardboard cutout characters. [23 October 2009]

Amelia

Amelia provides only a cursory look at Earhart's commercialization, more a way to delineate her marriage troubles than investigate her self-image or her treatment as a pop star.

Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman

The notion of romance -- elusive and resonant -- may be the most productive way to think about the relationship between Julius Shulman's photos and their architectural objects. [22 October 2009]

Independent Lens: Butte, America

Butte, America shows that as copper mine owners focused on exploiting resources, relations with workers deteriorated over decades. [21 October 2009]

Frontline: The Warning

The Warning reveals that at least one person, CFTC head Brooksley Born, spoke out against OTC derivatives, over a decade ago. [20 October 2009]

Still Bill

Still Bill underscores that Bill Withers and others were advised on how to sell their "blackness," a concept premised on adhering to white conventions and mainstream expectations.

Schmatta: Rags to Riches to Rags

According to Schmatta, the garment industry's early energy and hopefulness had roots in the workers themselves, their immigrant backgrounds, their ambitions, and their loyalties to one another. [19 October 2009]

Occupation

Tensions between beliefs -- business and family, religion and nation -- provide a thematic focus for Occupation, a four-hour miniseries airing on BBC America. [18 October 2009]

Where the Wild Things Are

Feelings of loss and frustration, acted out so loudly, raucously, and repeatedly, are at the center of Where the Wild Things Are. [16 October 2009]

Law Abiding Citizen

Jamie Foxx's Nick mostly repeats the part played by Denzel Washington in Ricochet, the superior first incarnation of Law Abiding Citizen.

Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution (Nos enfants nous accuseront)

Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution means to alarm and move viewers, to urge action or at least reaction. [15 October 2009]

Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Maurice Sendak

Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Maurice Sendak is appropriately erratic and weird, part documentary, part video diary, and part cunning fantasy. [14 October 2009]

Frontline: Obamas War

Beyond daily and continually mutating concerns in Afghanistan, the intelligent and unsettling Obama's War looks at big-picture questions. [13 October 2009]

Independent Lens: Herb & Dorothy

The first film in the new season of PBS' exceptional series, Independent Lens, Herb & Dorothy presents the Vogels with a mix of wonder and affection.

The Heretics

The political excitement of the 1970s, according to Joan Braderman's The Heretics, emerged from a belief that "everything was possible." [12 October 2009]

An Education

If the story of Jenny's inevitably hard lesson is standard, An Education comes up with a few moments that give pause. [9 October 2009]

Paranormal Activity

The titular and sometimes distressing activity in Paranormal Activity serves as a mostly banal metaphor for the couple's relationship.

Couples Retreat

It's some kind of trick when a film can make Jason Bateman look unsubtle.

After the Storm

In After the Storm, the young performers embody the complications of survival, the mixed sensations of pride, worry, and hope that shape their new world after Katrina. [8 October 2009]

Araya

Reimagined here, Araya is at once endless and utterly finite. [7 October 2009]

October Country

October Country focuses on the Mosher family to explore the many ways that patterns shape lives and expectations. [5 October 2009]

Outrage

"It's kind of hard to be public and closeted," quips Barney Frank, though Outrage shows repeatedly that this is exactly how best to describe secretly gay politicians.

Locks of Love: The Kindest Cut

It's hard to lose your hair any time, of course, but when you're eight years old, the resulting feelings of strangeness and isolation can be devastating. [4 October 2009]

Zombieland

Zombieland does well enough in its early minutes, then picks up a little unexpected speed when Columbus meets another "noncannibal survivor" (played by a perfect Woody Harrelson). [2 October 2009]

Whip It

What Whip It does make clear is that all girls are expected to perform, whether expectations are embodied by parents or audiences.

The Invention of Lying

The Invention of Lying's conventionally gendered division of rom-com labor is not exactly ameliorated by Mark's good intentions.

Finishing Heaven

Finishing Heaven gives Robert Feinberg enough rope to dangle his own self-image -- as lifelong rebel, precocious artist, and misunderstood genius. [1 October 2009]

The Horse Boy

Following Rupert Isaacson's best-selling book, also called The Horse Boy, the movie delivers his family's adventure in Mongolia with a syrupy guitar soundtrack, as well as traveloguey maps and explanations. [29 September 2009]

Lie to Me: Season Two Premiere

The very notion of truth as conveyed by a "real" or "true" self now seems almost quaint. [28 September 2009]

Coco Before Chanel (Coco avant Chanel)

Coco Before Chanel cannot get out from under the romantic fabrications and excesses that ostensibly annoyed its subject. [25 September 2009]

Medium: Season Six Premiere

The many threads of trust and logic that inform this "conversation" about time, memory, and illogic are vintage Medium.

The Forgotten: Series Premiere

The Forgotten's slick look doesn't exactly make up for its dearth of originality. [22 September 2009]

The Good Wife: Series Premiere

Julianna Margulies and Archie Panjabi's performances -- crisp and nuanced -- go a long way toward smoothing over the rough edges of their characters' obvious "types."

Independent Lens: Our Disappeared / Nuestros Desaparecidos

This idea of "looking into" a painful history permeates Juan Mandelbaum's documentary, Our Disappeared/Nuestros Desaparecidos. [21 September 2009]

POV: The Principal Story

In The Principal Story, premiering tonight as part of PBS' POV series, principal Tresa Dunbar is visibly empathetic with her stressed out faculty members. [15 September 2009]

Heart of Stone

In the olden days, long before Principal Stone's arrival, reports Beth Toni Kruvant's documentary, Weequahic High Scool was indeed a kind of beacon. [11 September 2009]

The Last Truck

The Last Truck seems like the GM plant workers' own creation, a commemoration of their devotion to their work and one another. [8 September 2009]

Extract

In Extract, Joel learns a frankly banal lesson with help from Cindy, who can't imagine holding down a real job and incarnates all that is ersatz. [4 September 2009]

American Casino

American Casino opens with a question: "The U.S. government has pledged over $12 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers to bail out Wall Street. Most people would like to know why." [2 September 2009]

POV: Ella Es El Matador (She Is the Matador)

One of two women at the center of Ella Es El Matador (She Is the Matador), Eva Florencia is visibly determined even as the reasons for her infatuation remain elusive. [1 September 2009]

We Live in Public

It's appropriate that We Live in Public is caught up in its own circle of consumption and regurgitation. [31 August 2009]

Taking Woodstock

The Ang Lee take on Woodstock never gets much beyond these clichés: hippies took drugs, rain made mud, the music was great and crowds were huge. [28 August 2009]

Cold Souls

Equal parts poetic drama, Charlie-Kaufmanny comedy and wholly strange anxiety-fantasy, Sophie Barthes' movie is premised on the non-answer, that is, the search that cannot be resolved by definition. [27 August 2009]

Wide Angle: Once Upon a Coup

Once Upon a Coup submits that the West interfered and even orchestrated the near-coup in Equatorial Guinea and backed off without much forethought or planning. [26 August 2009]

POV: This Way Up

The Wall on the West Bank is pervasive in This Way Up, Georgi Lazarevski's superb documentary about the effects of politics on everyday lives. [25 August 2009]

Which Way Home

The children interviewed for Rebecca Cammisa's film have fantasies, born of movie and TV images of the States, where kids have parents and ambitions. [24 August 2009]

Shorts

The chaos of Shorts is amplified when Toe finds a magic rainbow-colored wishing rock, which lets whoever has it have whatever he wants.

Inglourious Basterds

Inglourious Basterds' interest in rumors and reputations and their effects is complicated, both narrative and thematic. [21 August 2009]

World’s Greatest Dad

Indicting social media networks, TV talk shows, self-help books, and creative writing classes that encourage students to "express themselves," World's Greatest Dad appears determined to rehash clichés.

The Headless Woman (La mujer sin cabeza)

Lucretia Martel's third feature is a story of breakdowns, part dark comedy, part social analysis, and part brilliant abstraction. [20 August 2009]

Wide Angle: Eyes of the Storm

As Eyes of the Storm reports, the storm left over 130,000 Burmese dead and another two million homeless, among them thousands of young children. [19 August 2009]

Yasukuni

Li Ying's superb documentary focuses on swordmaker Kariya's work for the Yasukuni Shinto Shrine in Tokyo, said to house 2.5 million souls. [18 August 2009]

POV: Shorts Program

Elegant, elegiac, and weirdly enthralling, Eva Weber's City of Cranes is one of four short documentaries featured in POV's "Shorts Program."

Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi

As Fixer shows, Afghanistan was conceived and sustained by opportunists, and is to this day a kind of wild zone, where deals are continually made and broken. [17 August 2009]

District 9

In District 9, racism provides the white guy with a very special growth experience. [14 August 2009]

Lorna’s Silence (Le silence de Lorna)

Even as the camera follows Lorna, it never quite keeps up, though it's unclear whether she's eluding your interpretation or her own.

Bandslam

Knowing that you know the drill, Bandslam leaves out most too-explanatory details, and lets the kids be kidlike rather than movie-kidlike.

The Time Traveler’s Wife

The question of her own "free will" niggles at the edges of Clare's experience throughout the movie named for her.

The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard

The Goods' vulgarity is not new or clever or even comically shocking. It is, instead, prosaic and repetitive.

Paper Heart

Paper Heart is increasingly focused on the tension between Cera and Yi's supposedly real romance and the camera's imposition of structure and self-consciousness. [13 August 2009]

Wide Angle: Victory is Your Duty

Victory is Your Duty shows vivid contrasts in Cuba's national boxing program, between dreams and daily hardship, poetry and poverty. [12 August 2009]

The Nine Lives of Marion Barry

As Marion Barry talks, he remains fascinating, in a train-wreck kind of way. [10 August 2009]

Julie & Julia

Julia Child's letters home are vivacious, illustrating her generosity and wit, her resolve and sense of humor. [7 August 2009]

A Perfect Getaway

The home video sets up A Perfect Getaway's frank understanding of itself as formula.

Beeswax

If it's rare to see sisters at the center of a smart, mature, and artful movie, it's even more surprising to see them so keenly in tune. [6 August 2009]

Thirst (Bakjwi)

Full of ache and desire, Tae-ju seems the ultimate embodiment of the title of Park Chan-wook's new film, Thirst (Bakjwi). [5 August 2009]

Flame & Citron (Flammen & Citronen)

Throughout this compelling film, the assassins want to believe they're doing righteous work: they're fighting Nazi occupation forces, after all. [4 August 2009]

Boy Interrupted

Boy Interrupted offers visual correlatives for Dana's memories, juxtaposing snapshots of the sweet child with those of the scary one. [3 August 2009]

Defying Gravity

Defying Gravity goes on to grant Maddux a chance to redeem himself. Good thing, because his needs are vast, both melodramatic and action-heroic. [2 August 2009]

The Cove

In between the exciting sequences of the team setting up equipment and being nearly captured, The Cove includes interviews with persuasive sea life experts and not-so-convincing local Japanese authorities. [31 July 2009]

Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!

Russell Mulcahy and other artists look back fondly on Australian exploitation films for Not Quite Hollywood, sometimes wondering just how they were able to get away with it.

Fragments

Even as it makes a show of complexity Fragments seems determined to pull together its various story strands.

The Girl by the Lake (La Regazza Del Lago)

The mystery of The Girl by the Lake revolves around fathers, struggling to live in between eras, when their authority is questioned, their desires challenged, and their efforts deemed inadequate. [30 July 2009]

Wide Angle: Contestant No. 2

In Contestant No. 2, Duah serves as representative and representation. If she can be made a symbol of submission, good for the conservative religious elders; if she can win a beauty contest, she seems a sign of liberation. Maybe. [29 July 2009]

POV: Hold Me Tight, Let Me Go

In Hold Me Tight, Let Me Go, the difference between "normalcy" and "deviance (or between feeling safe or hurting) is, at some fundamental level, a matter of performance. [28 July 2009]

The Yes Men Fix the World

Alternately funny, incisive, and ridiculous, The Yes Men Fix the World offers a range of Mike and Andy's performance-arty actions and inevitably inappropriate reactions. [27 July 2009]

Orphan

It's not a bad idea for a horror movie, that the seeming victims are not innocent and their complicated past weighs on their present. [24 July 2009]

G-Force

G-Force's dedication to egregious stereotypes is hackneyed and indefensible: this is how racism lives on.

The Ugly Truth

Concerns about truth and untruth can't mean much in a movie called The Ugly Truth.

Shrink

As all of Shrink's seemingly disparate stories begin to fall too cleverly into each other, it's easy to be distracted by some fine performances. [23 July 2009]

Before the Fall (Tres días)

The first shot of the earth in Before the Fall (Tres días) is long and abstract. [22 July 2009]

Wide Angle: The Market Maker

Eleni Gabre-Madhin's plan to institute a commodities exchange has been in the works for years, since she saw the 1984 Ethiopian famine on TV.

POV: The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)

Nerakhoon looks forward to an unknown future as it also looks back on events obscured by history and media images. [21 July 2009]

Moonshot

Even as Moonshot commemorates the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moonwalk, it also underscores the essential mediation of that moment, the way it shaped and was shaped by TV. [20 July 2009]

Prom Night in Mississippi

Prom Night in Mississippi's use of drawings to make some contentious "incidents" visible reveals a central dilemma, how to represent what's not taped.

We Believe

We Believe shows that, whether they see their faith as a curse or a character-building adventure, Cubs fans assume their lot with each new season. [17 July 2009]

The Way We Get By

The Way We Get By stays focused on the greeters' mix of loneliness and determination, the pleasure of feeling needed and the pain of growing old.

Off Jackson Avenue

In Off Jackson Avenue, Olivia is gutsy, shrewd, and fed up in a way that makes her look ripe for a Quentin Tarantino movie.

In Their Boots: Silent Partners

Silent Partners, like other other documentaries of In Their Boots, offers its subjects a chance to share their experiences with the current U.S. military. [16 July 2009]

Dark Blue: Series Premiere

As the center of Jerry Bruckheimer's latest TV series, Dark Blue, Carter is predictably jaded, smart, and wounded. [15 July 2009]

The Disappeared

A complicated family dynamic is the point of departure for The Disappeared, part horror movie, part psychological study.

POV: The Reckoning: The Battle for the International Criminal Court

As The Reckoning: The Battle for the International Criminal Court observes, the ICC means to bring justice to populations long aggrieved and only rarely acknowledged. [14 July 2009]

Teddy: In His Own Words

Teddy: In His Own Words illustrates Kennedy's dogged devotion to "public service," even as his narration avoids digging too deeply into causes and effects. [13 July 2009]

Explorer: Inside Death Row

Inside Death Row's case against the death penalty is made repeatedly in images rather than explicit language. [12 July 2009]

Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg

Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg is amiable and formally conventional, a portrait that doesn't mean to provoke, but to revere. [10 July 2009]

The Hurt Locker

Unable to parse what he sees, James finds meaning, at last, in his misreading.

Humpday

In Humpday, Andrew can't help but compete with Anna, who has stolen his bro, or more precisely, his slowly receding notion of himself.

Moon

In brief, stark moments, Duncan Jones' movie makes plain how awful it is to be so solitary, how utterly impossible it is to consider this existence a "living." [9 July 2009]

Burma VJ: Reporting From a Closed Country

Burma VJ articulates a circular, daunting, and inevitable logic: visibility = life. [8 July 2009]

POV: Life. Support. Music.

In Life. Support. Music., Jason Crigler's recovery is surely inspiring -- especially as it is attributable to the family's concerted efforts. [7 July 2009]

The Beaches of Agnès (Les plages d’Agnès)

In The Beaches of Agnès, the "game" of cinema is endlessly fascinating, as what was and what can be come together on screen. [6 July 2009]

Lion’s Den (Leonera)

Pablo Trapero's film slows down following the splattery whirlwind of plot pieces that gets Julia inside prison. [3 July 2009]

Global Voices: Estilo Hip Hop

In Estilo Hip Hop, Guerrillero explains, "Rap has become my political weapon of choice."

Public Enemies

Sensational and turbulent, the relationship between John Dillinger and Melvin Purvis sold newspapers and attracted newsreel audiences. It was good for business. [1 July 2009]

POV: Beyond Hatred

Allusive and abstract, Beyond Hatred works something like a puzzle, examining the murder of a young gay man while never showing him or his killers. [30 June 2009]

Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge

Liz Garbus' documentary makes its case for free speech methodically, with examples ranging from notorious to obscure, that show the censoring of communications that lean both left and right. [29 June 2009]

The Stoning of Soraya M.

The gallant, educated, and sensitive outsider, will do right by Soraya, unlike the loathsome, fearful, and petty neighbors who killed her. [26 June 2009]

Chéri

Chéri's saga of bad parenting ostensibly has to do with designs and rituals of love.

Afghan Star

Afghan Star explores this American Idol-like show's effects on singers, producers, and thrilled fans -- not to mention those who reject it as one more sign of debasing Western influence. [25 June 2009]

Be Like Others

The sex change business is legal and highly regulated in Iran. As revealed in Be Like Others, it is also full of obvious, painful contradictions. [24 June 2009]

POV: New Muslim Cool

A rapper, Muslim, and Puerto Rican, Hamza Pérez "sounds like America's worst nightmare." But in New Muslim Cool, he looks more like a best hope. [23 June 2009]

Iran and the West

Iran and the West looks back at the past three decades of tension and eruption. [22 June 2009]

Dead Snow (Død snø)

Dead Snow knows exactly what it is... a horror film with Nazi zombies as stars. [19 June 2009]

Whatever Works

Whatever Works, a reported reworking of a 30-year-old script, is overtly old.

Year One

This strategy -- cutting away before a likely punchline -- is Year One's preferred mode.

Human Rights Watch International Film Festival

The documentaries of the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival grapple with profound dilemmas, yet make their cases through deeply personal perspectives. [18 June 2009]

The Queen and I

The Queen and I shows Nahid Persson Sarvestani's investment in documenting Farah's present life, as well as her own childhood interest in the royal family. [17 June 2009]

A Decade Behind Bars: A Return to The Farm

In A Decade Behind Bars: A Return to the Farm, inmates are moved when they watch the inauguration of Barack Obama on television. [16 June 2009]

America at a Crossroads: The Mosque in Morgantown

The Mosque in Morgantown focuses on debates within an American Muslim community, as this involves a range of individuals and beliefs. [15 June 2009]

True Blood

True Blood's second season showcases the similarities between fundamentalisms -- whether Christian or pagan. [14 June 2009]

The Taking of Pelham 123

Nothing if not self-aware, this update of Joseph Sargent's 1974 thriller begins by rearranging the class dynamics. [12 June 2009]

Food, Inc.

As Food, Inc. shows, these pretty, red, genetically engineered tomatoes are signs of a dodgy future already here.

Imagine That

Why anyone imagines children want to see Eddie Murphy's internal struggle may be the first question posed by Imagine That, but it's hardly the last.

The Reckoning: The Battle for the International Criminal Court

The Reckoning reveals that the ICC team -- attorneys, investigators, and analysts -- must work through thickets of denial, elusion, and obfuscation. [11 June 2009]

Fear Me Not (Den du frygter)

Fear Me Not offers an incessant, elegant visual rendering of Mikael's midlife dilemma. [10 June 2009]

Herb & Dorothy

The focus on seeing becomes Herb & Dorothy's most subtle insight regarding what the Vogels do with their art collecting. [9 June 2009]

Fighting for Life

Airing on PBS through the month, Fighting for Life focuses on the many complexities of military medicine -- moral, procedural, and political. [8 June 2009]

Land of the Lost

Lack of understanding and planning is the unclever premise of Land of the Lost. [5 June 2009]

Downloading Nancy

In Downloading Nancy, no one listens much to what Nancy has to say.

Unmistaken Child

As he makes his journey in Unmistaken Child, Tenzin is transformed, subtly.

Smile Pinki

With details of village life serving as helpful background, Smile Pinki keeps focused on the children's experiences. [3 June 2009]

The Chaser (Chugyeogja)

Surrounded by cops who mean well but have trouble keeping up, Jung-ho looks close to clever in The Chaser. [2 June 2009]

Loot

Loot sneaks up on you, much as the treasure hunters' own histories sneak up on them. [1 June 2009]

Global Voices: Rules of the Game

This is Rules of the Game's primary point, that Papua New Guinea is "one of the last places to join modern society," its progress retarded by lack of cohesive vision and long-term thinking. [31 May 2009]

Drag Me to Hell

Christine's monstrosity is hardly so daunting as that of the evil spirit stalking her, but it's of a piece with Drag Me to Hell's mostly vague cultural critique. [29 May 2009]

Pontypool

In Bruce McDonald's suitably weird zombie movie, the coin of the shock jock's own realm -- language -- is the source of all the trouble.

Girls’ Night Out: Beginning Filmmaking, Kick Like a Girl, Hard Times for an American Girl

Girls' Night Out is comprised of three short documentaries that feature lively subjects deeply engaged in their worlds, sometimes struggling, sometimes thrilled, always learning. [28 May 2009]

Laila’s Birthday (Eid milad Laila)

It's only the start of Abu Laila's long, long day in Laila's Birthday (Eid milad Laila), and already, he's impatient. [27 May 2009]

Mental: Series Premiere

Jack is one of those evangelizing TV-show doctors, willing his compatriots and underlings to believe in him. [26 May 2009]

Independent Lens: Steal a Pencil for Me

Michele Ohayon’s film makes the couple's complicated experience visible in reenactments and via photos and historical footage.

New World Order

Fear and a sense of powerlessness shape perspective, incite rage, and inspire doubt.

Obsessed

Obsessed's most disturbing moments approximate a point of view or state of mind.

Jerichow

No one here seems quite capable of feeling empathy or pity for anyone else. They're all too wrapped up in their own unfinished stories. [23 May 2009]

Dance Flick

As expected, the latest Wayans outing is crass, obnoxious, and loud. [22 May 2009]

Terminator Salvation

It's late in Terminator Salvation when Arnold Schwarzenegger makes his much-hyped non-appearance. [21 May 2009]

Cadaver (The Cut)

Cadaver is punctuated by intelligent, allusive imagery, compositions that offer up their own sort of hope. [20 May 2009]

Independent Lens: Stranded: I’ve Come From a Plane That Crashed in the Mountains

In Stranded: I've Come From a Plane That Crashed in the Mountains, impressionistic reenactments don’t provide plot or solicit viewer sympathy so much as they evoke anxiety. [19 May 2009]

Global Voices: Witnesses to a Secret War

Quietly and compellingly, Witnesses to a Secret War tells the stories of Hmong refugees in the U.S. and back in a Thai camp. [18 May 2009]

The Brothers Bloom

Overrated as truth may be, in The Brothers Bloom, Penelope (Rachel Weisz) is supposed to signify it. [15 May 2009]

The Song of Sparrows (Avaze gonjeshk-ha)

The goldfish flopping in the sun is an image typical of Majid Majidi's films, fable-like and seemingly simple even as it is also complex.

Museum of Modern Art Presents Kim Longinotto

As the MOMA series demonstrates, Kim Longinotto's films are verité, in the sense that they are comprised of handheld camerawork and affect an observational distance. But they are also, always, deeply involved in their subjects' experiences. [14 May 2009]

Frontline: The Madoff Affair

The Madoff Affair submits that Bernie Madoff's deceptions -- in rationales and in business models -- are not his invention. [12 May 2009]

Independent Lens: Crips & Bloods: Made in America

In Crips & Bloods: Made in America, airing as part of Independent Lens, Kumasi's memories of rejection and resentment are typical of his generation.

Julia

Julia is a mix of fantasy and tragedy, with the violence amped up and the background noisy and lurid. [11 May 2009]

Rudo y Cursi

Only a few minutes into Rudo y Cursi, the brothers are discovered playing grand and gloriously boyish fútbol.

The Alzheimer’s Project

The Alzheimer's Project provides a helpful introduction to this most pervasive and distressing disease.

Outrage

Kirby Dick's documentary argues that it's long past time that the many stories that shape closeted gay politicians' lives and careers be sorted out. [8 May 2009]

Star Trek

The much-anticipated movie reintroduces all the characters from the franchise’s first iteration, but its most intense and rewarding focus is friendship between Kirk and Spock.

Next Day Air

For all its speed and commotion, Next Day Air is a movie you've seen before.

China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province

At once intimate and devastating, China's Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province insists on tight framing of grieving faces. [7 May 2009]

Dark Mirror

At the start of Dark Mirror, Deb is just looking at what will become her new home. [6 May 2009]

Independent Lens: Wings of Defeat

Wings of Defeat shows that, then and now, the kamikaze pilots were complicated and diverse individuals, not stereotypical fanatics. [5 May 2009]

White on Rice

As appealing and clever as little Bob is, his story is actually not at the center of White on Rice. [4 May 2009]

The Limits of Control

The limits of control are simultaneously intimate and global. And Isaac De Bankolé's face reveals just as much as you can know. [1 May 2009]

The Skeptic

You know you're in trouble when the most appealing element your film is Tom Arnold.

IFC Media Project: Season 2 Premiere

Clever and quick, The IFC Media Project mostly respects viewers' savvy and intelligence.

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past submits that Connor deserves to be saved by Jenny. But it never shows how or why she should bother with him.

Foul Gesture

As much as Foul Gesture indicts the hyper-violence of a Walking Tall, it also indulges in it. [30 April 2009]

CSI: New York

No matter the frequent testing of Mac's resolve in CSI: NY, he tends to remain brusque. [29 April 2009]

Independent Lens: At Home in Utopia

Michal Goldman's film is a loving tribute to those hopes for a heaven on earth in the Coops. [28 April 2009]

Frontline: The Released

Heartbreaking and clear-eyed, The Released submits that this system of incarcerating and releasing severely mentally ill offenders is obviously unsustainable.

Oblivion (El Olvido)

The essential case made by Oblivion is this, that the limbo ("el olvido") is a way of life in Peru. [27 April 2009]

Global Voices: The Dictator Hunter

The titular figure in Klaartje Quirijns' fascinating documentary, The Dictator Hunter, Reed Brody pursues Hissène Habré, deposed leader of Chad. [26 April 2009]

The Soloist

The Soloist illustrates Nathaniel's internal life -- his music and his madness -- in reductive, sensational imagery. [24 April 2009]

Tyson

Tyson is about the processes that make Mike Tyson.

Fighting

For all its attention to local "color", Fighting focuses on the white boy's progress.

Treeless Mountain

So Yong Kim's remarkable film never spells out exactly what Jin or Bin is thinking, the camera implies how they see. [23 April 2009]

Trouble the Water

Trouble the Water reveals a vibrant mini-community of Nola residents, whose acute and often angry analyses of their circumstances put the so-called experts to shame.

Tôkyô!

Taken together, the three movies in Tôkyô! create a frightful, smart, and lingering impression. [22 April 2009]

Frontline: Poisoned Waters

Poisoned Waters makes the case that loss of clean water results from lagging efforts by government agencies, corporations, and individuals. [21 April 2009]

The Linguists

The young linguists here are charismatic, earnestly outgoing and even voracious when it comes to their life's work. [20 April 2009]

State of Play

In this new universe where facts are mutable and ends are means, so-called ethical triumphs can only be short-term. [17 April 2009]

American Violet

Based on the infamous Panhandle Regional Narcotics Task Force case in Tulia, Texas, American Violet makes clear the corruption and racism that pervades the official structures of its fictional town.

New World Order

New World Order is so carefully composed that the stories told by 9/11 truthers become both alarming and compelling. [16 April 2009]

Independent Lens: Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai

As much as she is celebrated by her constituents and the documentary, Taking Root, Wangari Maathai maintains her faith in "the people." [14 April 2009]

Guest of Cindy Sherman

Paul H-O's hurt feelings over being the overlooked man in a relationship with a famous woman, are surely familiar and not especially provocative. [13 April 2009]

Forbidden Lie$

As unusual, even sensational, images appear, it becomes clear that Forbidden Lie$'s more conventional images are also up for challenges, that they can no longer be assumed to be true. [10 April 2009]

An Unlikely Weapon: The Eddie Adams Story

An Unlikely Weapon remembers Eddie Adams as a pioneer, genius, and troublemaker, sharing his truths and challenging ours.

Lymelife

Lymelife features frustrated, confused kids, and frustrated, self-obsessed adults.

Thrilla in Manila

Thrilla in Manila argues that the fight's promotions were so obnoxious, the race-class-and-gender politics of the sport so backwards and oppressive, that neither Ali nor Frazier could emerge intact.

The Unusuals: Series Premiere

ABC's new NYC cop show premieres tonight and Cynthia Fuchs says "it's not new or challenging or even very strange. It is, however, plenty quirky." [8 April 2009]

Independent Lens: Milking the Rhino

Milking the Rhino tracks the shifting relations among African wildlife, their human neighbors, and eco-tourists. [7 April 2009]

Frontline: Black Money

As Frontline producer Lowell Bergman describes it, those who give and receive bribes function without worry that the rule of law, so-called, will ever quite apply to them.

Who Does She Think She Is?

Who Does She Think She Is? shows the daily chaos facing women artists trying to keep pace with families and ambitions, activist politics and personal choices. [6 April 2009]

In Treatment: Season Two Premiere

HBO's strangely beguiling series about therapy sessions reboots as Paul grapples with a new life, wondering how he's missed or misunderstood the rules. [5 April 2009]

Sugar

In this carefully observed and impressively minimalist movie, Sugar redefines and refines his art. [3 April 2009]

Enlighten Up!

Enlighten Up! is at least occasionally skeptical of the premise that true things might be articulated and disseminated.

Fast & Furious

Fast & Furious is everything it sounds like: crass, unoriginal, and mostly tiresome.

The Final Inch

Earnest and closely focused, The Final Inch follows the ongoing battle to eradicate polio from the world. [1 April 2009]

Inheritance

This notion of "help" -- impossible, necessary -- colors Inheritance, a documentary about living with memories of a Nazi father.

Independent Lens: Recycle

As the day dawns in the discerning and detailed Recycle, a bulldozer is pushing cardboard. [31 March 2009]

Frontline: Sick Around America

Sick Around America outlines the health care system, and its many contradictions.

American Swing

Certainly, the sex was exciting, as well as controversial. But Plato's Retreat also represented an effort to think through the mores behind monogamy, to challenge assumptions and imagine an alternative. [30 March 2009]

The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency

In The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, Precious (Jill Scott) is often complicated, sometimes subtle, and determinedly independent -- a few steps ahead of her series. [29 March 2009]

Blinders

Subtitled "The Truth Behind the Tradition," Danny Moss' Blinders lays out the many horrors and abuses of New York's horse-drawn carriage industry.

Goodbye Solo

Almost as soon as he appears in Goodbye Solo, the optimistic Solo is confronted with another perspective, belonging to a weary fare named William. [27 March 2009]

The Haunting in Connecticut

In the poorly paced and ineptly edited Haunting in Connecticut, Matt is surrounded by dark shadows, ooky male choruses, and reflections of tortured corpses in dirty glass.

The Objective

When the straggling survivors in The Objective learn they are expendable, they are also, much like the Nostromo crew, upset. [26 March 2009]

They Killed Sister Dorothy

They Killed Sister Dorothy extols the courage of Dorothy Stang in standing up to land management corruption in Brazil, while also continuing her fight. [25 March 2009]

Independent Lens: Lakshmi and Me

In her remarkable documentary, Lakshmi and Me, Nishtha Jain proposes to "cross a line," to film her maid, Lakshmi. [24 March 2009]

The Powder & The Glory

The Powder & The Glory follows the intertwined careers of Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubenstein, settling for well-researched timelines and superficial correlations. [23 March 2009]

Duplicity

For all its bright banter and flashbacky fanciness, Duplicity boils down to this rudimentary formula: morality and success are functions of beauty. [20 March 2009]

Hearts and Minds

The urgency of Hearts and Minds, its anger and its articulation, its insistence that effects of war be visible, and its cogent analysis of connections among politics, media, and the military, all seem apt lessons for today.

Hunger

The focus of Hunger is emphatically the death of Bobby Sands, specifically, what happens to his body, viewed from a tragic outside and, to an imaginative extent, a determined inside.

Alexander the Last

In this collaboration between IFC and SXSW starring Justin Rice from indie rock band Bishop Allen, questions of what's real or fake color the characters' experiences. [19 March 2009]

Three Blind Mice

Three Blind Mice follows the adventures of three 20something sailors in Sydney for one night. [18 March 2009]

Independent Lens: Arusi Persian Wedding

While the wedding provides compelling visuals and some minor melodrama, Arusi Persian Wedding is most interesting as it integrates its personal stories details within a broad historical context. [17 March 2009]

Death on a Factory Farm

In exposing animal cruelty, Death on a Factory Farm inspires your outrage, a first step toward changing weak laws. [16 March 2009]

Brothers at War

It is striking that Brothers at War approaches this profound and complicated relationship between brothers by way of trauma and death. [13 March 2009]

Robert Blecker Wants Me Dead

In the documentary, Robert Blecker Wants Me Dead, New York Law School professor and well-known retributivist Blecker submits he can measure -- in his gut -- who deserves to die. [12 March 2009]

Zift

Strikingly composed and deeply shadowed, the treacherous world in Zift combines politics and pop, fantasies from history and movies. [11 March 2009]

Castle: Series Premiere

Castle establishes the attractive opposites at its center, the womanizing, resolutely unserious novelist and the stern, utterly dedicated cop. [9 March 2009]

Everlasting Moments (Maria Larssons eviga ögonblick)

Everlasting Moments is simultaneously epic and poetic, mostly predictable but punctuated by breathtaking images. [6 March 2009]

Eleven Minutes

Jay McCarroll seems at home in front of the camera, and in Eleven Minutes, he's found an ideal situation: star of his own show. [5 March 2009]

Disarm

Disarm, Mary Wareham and Brian Liu's sober, intelligent documentary on landmines, includes interviews with anti-landmine activists as well as men who have set mines and men now engaged in demining. [2 March 2009]

Cherry Blossoms (Kirschblüten - Hanami)

As Cherry Blossoms (Kirschblüten - Hanami) begins, Trudi is surprised when she learns her husband is dying of an unnamed condition. [27 February 2009]

Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans

As framed in Faubourg Tremé: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans, carpenter Irving Trevigne's will to preserve the past is admirable but also set against a series of challenges.

An American Affair

Before An American Affair is over, you can be sure that Adam will learn a very familiar life lesson.

The Black List: Vol. 2

The sheer beauty of the images creates its own sort of narrative, a visual demonstration of The Black List's original impetus to recover the typically "negative" denomination of the "black list" and reframe it as positive and inspiring. [26 February 2009]

Examined Life: Philosophy is in the Streets

In Examined Life, a lively assembly of philosophers ponder the question: "What's at stake here?" [25 February 2009]

Independent Lens: The Order of Myths

It's the careful, unsensational revelation of self-delusion that makes The Order of Myths so devastating. [24 February 2009]

Gomorrah (Gomorra)

As much as the victims and aggressors in Naples mafia movie Gomorrah seek to repress consequences of gangsterism, they are, of course embodying them. [23 February 2009]

Taking Chance

You don't see Chance Phelps die in Taking Chance. You do see how his body becomes meaningful for many others. [20 February 2009]

Must Read After My Death

Must Read After My Death makes narrative sense out of experience, but also leaves much of the nonsense in place, not explaining or rationalizing.

The Witness: From the Balcony of Room 306

In the Oscar-nominated The Witness: From the Balcony of Room 306, Reverend Billy Kyles recalls seeing Martin Luther King, Jr's death. [18 February 2009]

Frontline: Inside the Meltdown

Part investigation, part damn scary story, Frontline: Inside the Meltdown suggests that events unfolded as they did largely because of the personalities involved. [17 February 2009]

Right America: Feeling Wronged: Some Voices from the Campaign Trail

Right America constructs a sort of intimacy with the "other side" while also maintaining its own recognizable political sensibility. [16 February 2009]

Two Lovers

A wall of family photos, glimpsed briefly in an early scene of Two Lovers, lays out Leonard's too conventional dilemma.

The International

Tom Tykwer's thriller shrewdly introduces Lou (Clive Owen) as he observes rather than acts. [13 February 2009]

Confessions of a Shopaholic

What is John Salley doing in this movie?

Friday the 13th

Chewie knows his place in this determinedly un-new Friday the 13th: Asian Nerd About to Die.

Dollhouse: Series Premiere

Even as Dollhouse sounds like other TV shows and movies, it is also utterly strange, its premise literally ridiculous and intriguingly metaphorical. [12 February 2009]

Gang Nation: Series Premiere

"They look like a bunch of scared lads to me," says Ross Kemp of the MS 13 members he meets. Their longstanding poverty, he adds, belies the standard story that they're trafficking millions of dollars worth of cocaine. [11 February 2009]

Independent Lens: Tulia, Texas

As Tulia, Texas follows the many turns of the Drug Task Force case, from the initial convictions to investigations of undercover agent Tom Coleman, it becomes a cautionary tale. [10 February 2009]

American Experience: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln tracks the converging paths of the president and his killer, then tracks and draws connections between their last journeys, in the forms of Lincoln's funeral train route and Booth's desperate efforts to escape. [9 February 2009]

Chocolate (Chokgohlaet)

Chocolate (Chokgohlaet) offers sensational martial arts set pieces -- beautifully choreographed, exquisitely colored, and acrobatically shot. [6 February 2009]

Push

Too much explanation, of the sort Cassie is inclined to provide, only slows down the nonsense Push is pushing.

California Dreamin’ (Nesfarsit)

California Dreamin' mostly observes a series of complicated personal interactions, its point helped along by Doiaru's speeches concerning the ongoing American failure even to try to comprehend the populations it invades, assimilates, abuses, and buys off. [5 February 2009]

Memorial Day

For all its visceral assaults and improv-ish aesthetics, in the end Memorial Day offers a conventional moral assessment. [4 February 2009]

Independent Lens: Adjust Your Color: The Truth of Petey Greene

As Adjust Your Color recounts, Petey Greene used his groundbreaking radio and television talk shows to influence millions, winning two Emmy awards and varieties of adulation over the years. [3 February 2009]

Frontline: My Father, My Brother, and Me

My Father, My Brother, and Me leaves the ethical and religious debates over Parkinson's disease mostly untouched, focusing instead on immediate issues, specifically, how to "live with" the disease.

The Trials of Ted Haggard

Though Ted Haggard says he chooses not to be "a man of disrepute," The Trials of Ted Haggard suggests this is not his choice to make. [2 February 2009]

Of Time and the City

The effect of visual movements in Of Time and the City is fantastic. Even as it documents urban life and recalls events, it offers Terence Davies' analyses of the history that has shaped him. [30 January 2009]

Taken

The melodramatic set-up takes little time in Pierre Morel's extra-actionated thriller. Almost as soon as Kimmie lands in Paris and neglects to call her father on the super-phone he's provided her, she's punished -- severely.

The Uninvited

The sex-with-daddy business serves as an underpinning to Anna's fundamental trauma.

Crips and Bloods: Made in America

Stacy Peralta's documentary traces the emergence of gangs in L.A., as well as their contexts and causes. [29 January 2009]

Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh

The film makes clear in readings from Hannah Seneh's diaries and poems that her dedication to building a Jewish state has shaped her legacy. [28 January 2009]

Trust Me: Series Premiere

The essential tension of Trust Me lies in two ad men who are creative, quick, and sardonic, ambitious and insecure. [26 January 2009]

Waltz with Bashir (Vals Im Bashir)

As Waltz with Bashir makes visible its distrust of imperfect history and daunting memory, it insists on their necessity. [23 January 2009]

The Lodger

David Ondaatje's movie offers up a series of potentially interesting meta-texts, concerning the significantly named Manning's obsession and aggression, his professional identity and, of course, masculinity.

Ballerina

The visual arrangements of Ballerina reinforce its careful, respectful approach to documenting the experiences of five dancers in the Kirov Ballet. [22 January 2009]

Lie to Me: Series Premiere

The start of Lie to Me introduces the expected tensions and identifications. The bomb is literally ticking, the villain is sincerely awful, and the doubters are rubes. [21 January 2009]

Frontline: Dreams of Obama

The "dreams of Obama" are partly his and partly his admirers', functions of his much-repeated story, his political ambitions and achievements, as well as the desires of his many and diverse supporters. [20 January 2009]

Crawford

Crawford entertains and informs, exposing the crass stagecraft of the Western White House. [19 January 2009]

Notorious

Notorious looks back on the day when hip-hop was coming into its seeming own, when telling stories was a way to make order from chaos, as well as money and, as Biggie saw it, mo problems. [16 January 2009]

Last Chance Harvey

Last Chance Harvey is a movie about starting over.

The Beast: Series Premiere

Even when The Beast trots out clichés, Patrick Swayze is compelling, his many performances jaggedy and surprising, his rhythms weird, his sense of humor entertainingly bleak. [15 January 2009]

The Secret of the Grain (Graine Et Le Mulet)

Slimane's effort to adapt to changing times forms the center of Abdellatif Kechiche's lovely, mesmerizing The Secret of the Grain (Graine et Le Mulet). [14 January 2009]

Che

Che is about the dissemination of Che Guevara the icon, as it is also the saga of Che refashioned. [13 January 2009]

24: Season Seven Premiere

Jack's interrogation of the suspect Tony, on behalf of the Bureau, is vintage 24, full of close-up grimaces and slams into walls. [11 January 2009]

Silent Light (Stellet licht)

Silent Light begins with Johan -- farmer, son of a Mennonite preacher, husband, and father -- looking very stuck. [9 January 2009]

Bride Wars

Bride Wars is part cautionary tale, part fairy tale, and part Jerry Springer episode, as Liv and Emma's so-called dreams are wholly conventional and their antics are increasingly outrageous.

13 Fear is Real

Pity the contestants on 13 Fear is Real. First, they must travel to the Louisiana Bayou -- a place, intones the Mastermind, their narrator and host, that is "notorious for its ghosts and voodoo," not to mention its mud and insects. [7 January 2009]

Frontline: The Old Man and the Storm

Incisive, heartrending, and beautifully crafted, The Old Man and the Storm reflects on how the "crippled city [has struggled] to right itself," despite insurmountable odds. [6 January 2009]

Independent Lens: Helvetica

Helvetica, the film's experts repeat, is sort of generic -- in the sense that it is familiar and enduring, making readers feel comfortable and reassured.

At the Death House Door

In At the Death House Door, Reverend Carroll Pickett's inspiring conversion story is balanced by Rose Rhoton's complicated response to her brother's wrongful execution.

The Story of India

Michael Wood's style is typically breathless and impressed, following a general timeline and inviting you to feel his enthusiasm. [5 January 2009]

Defiance

Defiance's tendency to melodrama drags the rest of this ostensibly historical saga into a decidedly middling territory. [31 December 2008]

Independent Lens: Operation Filmmaker

Operation Filmmaker brilliantly reveals how films, politics, and desires do their work. [30 December 2008]

Le Cirque: A Table in Heaven

Le Cirque: A Table in Heaven follows Sirio Moccione, who has since 1974 maintained his restaurant as a super-upscale site for fine dining and celebrity hobnobbing. [29 December 2008]

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

It's an inelegant but provocative means to measure Benjamin and Daisy's ostensibly transcendent connection: as he grows young and she grows old, they share but a single moment when their bodies and visions and hopes can easily coincide. [24 December 2008]

Revolutionary Road

In Revolutionary Road, April is turned into the prize Frank wants to own and the puzzle he seeks to solve.

Marley & Me

Granting Marley & Me's source in John Grogan's columns, the dog's service as metaphor in the movie is both obvious and uninspired.

Bedtime Stories

Bedtime Stories lumbers, repeating plot points and jokes, meandering from scene to scene and seeming to forget where it was headed.

The Spirit

The Spirit (Gabriel Macht) lives in a dark, superficial, and exceedingly familiar place. [23 December 2008]

Valkyrie

Valkyrie's forward motion is stalled repeatedly by hyperbolically symbolic images, which also undercut some nuanced performances.

Independent Lens: Grey Gardens: From East Hampton to Broadway

A charming, if aptly peculiar, holiday treat, Grey Gardens: From East Hampton to Broadway focuses on the translation of the Maysles' beloved documentary into a Tony Award-winning Broadway musical.

Nothing But the Truth

Rod Lurie's Nothing But the Truth looks at the compromises and complications that shape the "truth" in legal systems, media collusions, and politics in DC. [22 December 2008]

The Class (Entre les murs)

The Class (Entre les murs) effectively demonstrates that school can be as nervous-making and fraught for teachers -- first-time or veteran -- as for students.

Seven Pounds

Equally afflicted by an old-school weepies affect and new-agey self-righteousness, Seven Pounds is by turns clumsy and overbearing. [19 December 2008]

Yes Man

Carl (Jim Carrey) meets the incredible Allison (Zooey Deschanel), a girl so completely charming and dazzlingly unpredictable that he is instantly convinced of the rightness of yes.

The Tale of Despereaux

The movie starts with a cute sleight-of-handy gimmick, the sort that assumes a canny audience who’s a step ahead of regular narrative conventions.

The Garden

The Garden tracks the legal maneuvering, social organizing, and political activating on all sides of the South Central Garden controversy. [18 December 2008]

The Wrestler

Just four minutes into The Wrestler, it looks like Randy has good reason to cling to his past, as his present is so exceedingly unpleasant. [17 December 2008]

Independent Lens: Wonders Are Many: The Making of Doctor Atomic

The challenges of portraying the Manhattan Project form the core of the excellent documentary Wonders Are Many: The Making of Doctor Atomic. [16 December 2008]

Cat Dancers

In Cat Dancers, Ron Holiday's story is full of exclamation points, signaling delight, intrigue, and tragedy. [15 December 2008]

Nothing Like the Holidays

Nothing Like the Holidays is like a lot of other holiday movies.

Gran Torino

As Gran Torino breaks down the iconic Eastwood Movie, it recalls The Searchers, another timely evocation of collective wrongheadedness and terrible legacies. [12 December 2008]

Doubt

Sister James (Amy Adams) embodies her historical moment, yearning to believe, adhering to tradition, and yet also inspired by a changing world.

The Day the Earth Stood Still

On its face, casting Keanu Reeves as Klaatu, that most thoughtful visitor from another planet, seems inspired. Or maybe just obvious.

Wendy and Lucy

Surviving traumas, Wendy (Michelle Williams) serves as both detailed portrait and metaphorical expanse. Her pain is specific but also vague, her loss exact and all-encompassing.

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation

Even if CSI won't articulate its race politics, the introduction of Laurence Fishburne into this whiter-than-white team of investigators can't help but call up memories of the long-troubled Warrick (Gary Dourdan). [11 December 2008]

The Reader

Most obviously, Hannah is unfathomable, the feminine object Michael must figure out and overcome in order to "become a man." [10 December 2008]

POV: Inheritance

This notion of "help" -- impossible, necessary -- colors Inheritance, a documentary about living with memories of a Nazi father.

Leverage

Each week Nate (Timothy Hutton) oversees a masterful scheme to steal from skeevy rich people and give back to relatively and always ethically sound poor people. [9 December 2008]

Independent Lens: Doc

Sinuous, dynamic, and utterly compelling, Doc remembers the man as his own lifelong project.

In Prison My Whole Life

In Prison My Whole Life works through the contexts and details of Mumia Abu Jamal's experience, connecting it to other moments in recent American history. [8 December 2008]

House of Saddam

At the start of House of Saddam, the Iraqi leader watches George W. Bush announce the coming war on TV, looking into a reflection of his own end, born of hubris and deception and decades of disloyalties. [5 December 2008]

Frost/Nixon

No matter Frost/Nixon's efforts to revise it, history will never be the same.

Cadillac Records

In the ambitious and cluttered Cadillac Records, Leonard Chess redistributes income among his artists, but the point is not lost on any of them that he decides who plays when and even how to play.

Punisher: War Zone

The premise is so awful it veers toward sublime: the angry white guy kills everyone.

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father

The links among truth, story, and memory come up repeatedly in Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father. [4 December 2008]

Special

While Les works out his intriguing life puzzle, the film winds itself into some knotty plot points. [3 December 2008]

Explorer: Marijuana Nation

Marijuana Nation is interested in what makes pot so "desired by so many." [2 December 2008]

Dirty Driving: Thundercars in Indiana

Dirty Driving: Thundercars in Indiana, a subtle, provocative documentary that premiered last month on HBO, observes the complicated relationship between racers and the car industry. [1 December 2008]

Milk

Milk urges optimism and action, even as it also recalls the loss of its charismatic subject. [26 November 2008]

Australia

Australia is both an epic and a post-epic epic: it understands what's at stake in such spectacle-making and wants to show you that it knows.

Transporter 3

As Frank discovers what's at stake and unravels who wants what, he devises first to get the job done and then, because he actually falls for his wet noodle of a passenger, to save her.

Four Christmases

Motherhood, Four Christmases submits, is all Kate needs to be happy. The husband, he's incidental.

Frontline: The Hugo Chávez Show

The television show that propels, shapes, and delivers Hugo Chávez remains odd and provocative. [25 November 2008]

Independent Lens: The Atom Smashers

Science, in a previous version of the United States, was part of daily, popular culture, a subject and career considered respectable, even admirable.

The Rape of Europa

The film contrasts remarkable footage of the Fuhrer leading tours of museums with images of the devastation his troops wrought. [24 November 2008]

24: Redemption

In Africa, where children are forced to soldier, Jack realizes, every day is full of terror -- not just the 24-hour spates he's used to confronting. [21 November 2008]

Twilight

Fantasy rules in Twilight, fantasy simultaneously delicate and ravishing, chaste and utterly bloody.

The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)

In Nerakhoon, Thavi's memories are both poetic and harsh, tied up in the war he left behind but also never escaped.

Bolt

Bolt's faith in his fiction is slightly pathetic, but it's not unrelated to the ways that children (as well as pets) are regularly conditioned.

50 Cent: The Money and the Power

Alternately disconcerting and trainwreck-fascinating, 50 Cent's entry into reality programming is a mix of The Apprentice and ego trip's The (White) Rapper Show. [20 November 2008]

Independent Lens: March Point

March Point concentrates on the boys' way out, that is, the movie as a way to tell their story. [18 November 2008]

We Are Wizards

Josh Koury's documentary about hardcore Harry Potter fans, meandering and amiable, reveals that resistance to consumer culture is pretty much futile. [17 November 2008]

Quantum of Solace

Bond (Daniel Craig) seems done in by the notion that M is indeed his maternal superior, and so he must please her, or at least pretend that he's playing by rules that he and she and all the rest of us know he disrespects from jump. [14 November 2008]

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Bruno's education and his mother's regret are rendered with big music and zoomy close-ups, in the end, a story of the Holocaust that is less enlightening than melodramatic.

Independent Lens: Lioness

Lioness, Meg McLagan and Daria Sommers' understated, affecting documentary on women in combat in Iraq, shows how they operate in a "grey zone," not quite legal, but following orders. [13 November 2008]

Slumdog Millionaire

In Slumdog Millionaire's riotous, luscious fantasy, Jamal responds to an astonishing series of game show questions -- each speaking directly and surreally to his own life experiences. [12 November 2008]

Body of War: The True Story of an Anti-War Hero

In making "people like Tomas" visible, Body of War makes its most effective argument: wars cost more than we can know. [11 November 2008]

Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story

Of the many historic changes signaled by Barack Obama's election, the defeat of divide-and-conquer politicking is among the most profound -- even if this demise is temporary.

Pray the Devil Back to Hell

Leymah's recollection serves as point of departure for Pray the Devil Back to Hell, Gini Reticker's low-key, affecting documentary on Liberia's Women's Peace Initiative. [10 November 2008]

JCVD

Part homage, part parody, and part surreal thought experiment, Mabrouk El Mechri's movie nimbly avoids categorization. [7 November 2008]

Soul Men

While it's surely moving to see the closing credits tribute to the much-missed Bernie Mac, the route to that end is slow going.

Role Models

Role Models invites you to celebrate "fantasy world where anything is possible", at least if you're a boy in need of approval.

Independent Lens: Knee Deep

Knee Deep is actually less interested in the details of who shot Janette Osborne than in the multiple stories that emerged from the crime. [6 November 2008]

The Matador

More observational than overtly critical, The Matador doesn't explore the ways that bullfighting marks the limits of a culture's self-image. [5 November 2008]

The F Word

It so happens that Jed Weintrob's The F Word is airing on IFC this morning, the very morning that the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing FCC v. Fox Television Stations, the "fleeting expletives" case. [4 November 2008]

Jesus Politics

Jesus Politics examines the complex relationship between religion and politics in the 2008 campaign for U.S. president. [3 November 2008]

Zack and Miri Make a Porno

All the hubbub leads to a standard coupling, the regular boy wins the exceptional girl (because in the boy's mind, she is always exceptional, even if, in your mind, she's settling). [31 October 2008]

RocknRolla

Violence is the primary form of communication among all the film's macho posturers.

Moving Midway

As much as Moving Midway interrogates the past as myth, its inclusion of a direct expression of racism here and now is alarming. [30 October 2008]

Good Dick

Good Dick is a familiar romance, in which seemingly mismatched misfits find solace and a kind of perfect harmony in each other. [29 October 2008]

Independent Lens: Dinner with the President: A Nation’s Journey

Dinner with the President: A Nation’s Journey finds a particular, recurring focus in the question of women's rights. [28 October 2008]

Let the Right One In (Låt den rätte komma in)

If the display of violence is to be expected in a "vampire movie," the particular framings are striking. [27 October 2008]

Inside New Orleans High

Disappointments abound in Inside New Orleans High. But hopes are also unstoppable. [24 October 2008]

Changeling

A movie made with awards season in mind, Changeling offers extravagant affects and overwritten speeches.

Synecdoche, New York

Much like protagonists in previous Charlie Kaufman scripts, Caden is an artist in search of his art.

Pride and Glory

By the time Eladio (Rick Gonzalez) makes his single-scene appearance in Pride and Glory, the fate of his adversary has been exhaustively telegraphed.

Fear(s) of the Dark (Peur[s] du noir)

The fear described here is not visceral or familiar, but it is incisive. What if civilization is inexplicable? [23 October 2008]

Deliver

Deliver is a reworking of John Boorman's Deliverance in which Lou and her friends enter the woods in pursuit of an adventure outside their own routines. [22 October 2008]

Independent Lens: Chicago 10

Opening the Fall 2008 season of Independent Lens, Chicago 10 revises old ideas -- about what constitutes history and documentary.

Stranded: I’ve Come From a Plane That Crashed in the Mountains

In Stranded, the endless whiteness of the plane crash survivors' new environment comes to reflect and affect their evolving "society." [21 October 2008]

What Just Happened

Less an expose than a recap of what even casual observers of the industry know or intuit, What Just Happened relies on clichés even as it deplores them. [20 October 2008]

W.

The readymade caricature George Bush is as much a reflection of his moment as he is an occasion for Oliver Stone's latest stab at revisionist history. [17 October 2008]

The Secret Life of Bees

May's wailing wall appears repeatedly in Gina Prince-Blythewood's The Secret Life of Bees, each time an invitation to reflect, to remember what was and hope for what might be.

Crash: Series Premiere

Despite his recent meandering through Ameriprise commercials on the beach, Dennis Hopper can still pull out an audacious Frank Booth-like performance when so moved.

Crusoe: Series Premiere

NBC's Crusoe will not have any black man calling a white man "Master."

POV: Soldiers of Conscience

Soldiers' moral struggles tend to remain invisible, like the situations that drive them. Soldiers of Conscience shows the dilemmas and the costs of war. [16 October 2008]

Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story

Lee Atwater is remembered as brilliant or shameful, effective or destructive, his life part American Dream, part horror movie. [15 October 2008]

Frontline: The Choice

As The Choice points out, differences between candidates are useful selling points. [14 October 2008]

Section 60: Arlington National Cemetery

Poignant and subtle, Section 60: Arlington National Cemetery shows how mourners come together even as they maintain specific relations with their relatives and friends.

Nights and Weekends

In brief scenes, lovely or tense, mostly unresolved, Nights and Weekends indicates a slow, almost imperceptible evolution in the relationship. [10 October 2008]

Saving Marriage

High contrasts, as well as grays in between, structure John Henning and Mike Roth's moving 2006 documentary about the legal and political battles surrounding gay marriage in Massachusetts.

Body of Lies

Body of Lies grants Ferris the usual moral rightness -- even as he's committing questionable acts, he means well.

The Express

Again and again, Ernie (Rob Brown) faces down racist thug defenders, his singular prowess signaled by the film's slow motion and big music.

Life on Mars: Series Premiere

Harvey Keitel makes a great entrance in Life on Mars. You expect as much, of course, because he's Harvey Keitel. But it is truly great. [9 October 2008]

Eleventh Hour

In Eleventh Hour, the FBI agents like to explain what they're doing and who they are -- repeatedly.

POV: Up the Yangtze

Respectful and riveting, Up the Yangtze reveals the complex effects of loss and fear, as well as a kind of relentless hopefulness. [8 October 2008]

Rachel Getting Married

In Rachel Getting Married, Kym and Rachel's relationship is routinely rocky, abetted by what's unspoken by everyone else. [7 October 2008]

How Ohio Pulled It Off

The style of argument in How Ohio Pulled It Off is methodical and dramatically shaped through a focus on then Secretary of State Ken Blackwell. [6 October 2008]

How to Lose Friends & Alienate People

As you and Alison wait for Sidney to come around, How to Lose Friends & Alienate People loses its way. [3 October 2008]

Religulous

Certainty grants Bill Maher an easy target, especially as he is, he says, selling doubt: "That's my product."

Blindness

If its political metaphor is plain, the aesthetic allusions are more intriguing, as Blindness works to show what can't be shown, to find a visual language for what's not visual.

Flash of Genius

Robert Kearns' saga is more complicated than its trite "stalwart individual against the system" scaffolding suggests. Still, the movie sticks mostly to the scaffolding.

America Betrayed

Early in Leslie Cardé's smart, galvanizing documentary America Betrayed, Michael Grunwald calls Katrina "a manmade disaster." [2 October 2008]

Appaloosa

Men are weathered in Appaloosa, a one-saloon town in 1882's New Mexico Territory.

Ballast

The first odd moments of Ballast drop you into a deeply felt, barely articulated plot. [1 October 2008]

POV: In the Family

Joanna Rudnick's documentary about BRAC genetic testing charts the complicated process of making decisions in her documentary, in ways alternately informative, distressing, and galvanizing.

POV: Critical Condition

Roger Weisberg's documentary provides a devastating critique of the U.S. health care system by following four subjects through their daily efforts to find relief, work, or counsel. [30 September 2008]

Taxi to the Dark Side

According to Taxi to the Dark Side, Alex Gibney's Oscar-winning documentary, the torture of detainees has been ordained and conditioned by the Bush administration. [29 September 2008]

Life

Charlie (Damian Lewis) teeters incessantly on the line between cocky and ridiculous, quirky and respectable -- as if he understands the differences.

The Lucky Ones

The wars in the Middle East hang over The Lucky Ones like high cloud cover, coloring each event during the road trip, no matter how banal.

Dexter: Season Three Premiere

The moral muddling is never resolved in Dexter. The more Dexter (Michael C. Hall) insists on his rightness, the more limited his vision appears. [26 September 2008]

Miracle at St. Anna

Spike Lee's answer to the many WWII movies that have left out the experiences of black soldiers, Miracle at St. Anna is ambitious and ardent.

Choke

If Choke isn’t the first movie where a young narrator's self-pity, obsessiveness, and desperation are blamed on his mother, it is one of the more emphatic versions.

Nights in Rodanthe

In an alternative universe, Jean (Viola Davis) does have a story -- one that you'd rather be seeing as Nights in Rodanthe descends into mundane melodrama.

Eagle Eye

Where's Jamie Foxx when you need him?

The Duchess

The movie, which surely celebrates Georgiana's (Keira Knightley) luxurious "hats and dresses," also solicits your sympathetic frustration and outrage over her oppression. [25 September 2008]

The Mentalist: Series Premiere

The Mentalist uses Patrick's (Simon Baker) obnoxiousness to different effects. When he isn't pausing to consider himself, he's taking out opponents at the knees. [23 September 2008]

Battle in Seattle

Even as various people try to "do their jobs" in Battle in Seattle, they are repeatedly boxed in by lack of information and lack of power. [19 September 2008]

Lakeview Terrace

Lisa (Kerry Washington) is Lakeview Terrace's most dislocated figure, caught between an overbearing father and a frenzied husband.

Ghost Town

As you endure Ghost Town's unfunny "unfinished business," you can't help but be thankful for Téa Leoni's precision and classically screwballish physicality.

The Pool

in The Pool, Venkatesh's education appears in a series of brief, evocative scenes, he and his mentor gardening together as one or the other tells a story about his past. [18 September 2008]

The Human Camera

The Human Camera suggests that Steven's "extraordinary" ability is therapeutic even as it is wondrous. [17 September 2008]

POV: Calavera Highway

Calavera Highway considers the point where it becomes impossible to distinguish between reality and myth, experience and narrative. [16 September 2008]

Towelhead

As viewers of Towelhead must know (and Jasira, eternally ripe and optimistic, will never know), the future has only become more constricted. [15 September 2008]

Burn After Reading

Ozzie (John Malkovich) embodies the problem of the CIA, of the "intelligence community," which is that it reacts to data, then fashions a story about it to comport with the reaction. [12 September 2008]

‘Righteous Kill’: Attacked on All Sides

Righteous Kill uses Karen (Carla Gugino) both to critique the male cops' sense of self-righteousness and be the victim.

Flow: For Love of Water

Flow critiques the commodification of water, which has resulted in increased global inequities. [11 September 2008]

The Grocer’s Son (Le fils de l’épicier)

The plot of The Grocer's Son is familiar, but its impressionistic visual stylings are at once lyrical and precise, gestures toward character rather than pronouncements. [10 September 2008]

Fringe: Series Premiere

The formula set in motion by the Fringe pilot is familiar, but also devious and delightful. [9 September 2008]

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

On its face, casting Shirley Manson in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles appears a masterstroke. [8 September 2008]

True Blood

The goofy vampire romance in True Blood is granted another perspective by Tara (Rutina Wesley), who at least seems aware of life outside of Bon Temps, Louisiana. [7 September 2008]

Mister Foe (Hallam Foe)

By the end of Hallam Foe, you've nearly forgotten his all-too-regular boy development. Now you're wondering, what's Kate doing when he's not looking? [5 September 2008]

I Served the King of England (Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále)

Using the absurd Díte to indict ambition, passivity, and willful ignorance, I Served the King of England is a familiar sort of comedy, equal parts farcical and musical.

A Jihad for Love

Parvez Sharma's documentary, A Jihad for Love, traces heartening, harrowing stories of Muslim gay men and lesbians. [4 September 2008]

Babylon A.D.

The fact that Aurora incarnates some extreme other possibility -- be it "light" or darkness, miraculous birth or genocide -- makes her one more "mother of the future." [2 September 2008]

Raising the Bar

In Raising the Bar, Gloria Reuben's savvy public defender spends too much time instructing eager white boys. [1 September 2008]

Prison Break

Prison Break has never lacked for the burly grrr factor.

No End in Sight

Now that "the "surge is working" and the Bush Administration is again claiming foresight, expertise, and accomplishment, it seems a good time to re-see Charles Ferguson’s smart, meticulous documentary No End in Sight.

What We Do Is Secret

The faux interview preserves Darby Crash's self-image, the reenactment in What We Do Is Secret remembers the preservation. [29 August 2008]

August the First

Lanre Olabisi's first feature offers an intricate portrait of relationships and individuals, histories and hopes.

Documenting the Face of America: Roy Stryker and the FSA/OWI Photographers

Jeanine Isabel Butler's film addresses an impressive range of issues -- focused through representation and responsibility -- germane for us today. [28 August 2008]

Traitor

While the film appears at first to be complicating the definition of "traitor," it's not long before the potential meanings are reductive and literal. [27 August 2008]

I.O.U.S.A.

In I.O.U.S.A. explains in clear and compelling terms fiscal problems that have been in motion for decades. [26 August 2008]

The Black List, Vol. 1

As Lou Gossett Jr. recalls his childhood and early career in Greenwich Village for The Black List, Vol. 1, he sits in a depthless space, a gray screen behind him. [25 August 2008]

Trouble the Water

Trouble the Water reveals not only the terrors of the hurricane but also the political and personal valences of its legendary mismanagement. [22 August 2008]

Hamlet 2

Dana's inability to parse the difference between acting and living is put to several tests in Hamlet 2, which is not only the name of his movie but also the title of the audacious play he writes for his students to perform.

Stealing America: Vote by Vote

Not talking about controversial election issues is a first target for Stealing America. [21 August 2008]

The Rocker

The Rocker is almost salvaged by the charming performances of its actual youngsters (as opposed to the adults doing youngster shtick). [20 August 2008]

POV: The Judge and the General

The Judge and the General gives Guzmán the opportunity to reflect on his part in the process of Pinochet's regime and to define the perpetrators. [19 August 2008]

Wide Angle: Iraqi Exodus

In Iraqi Exodus, Aaron Brown is much like you remember him -- wry, insightful, and slightly sad -- as well as on top of a story that has not yet piqued the interest of the mainstream press.

Mirrors

While Ben's (Kiefer Sutherland) bouncing between selves is distracting, it's not nearly so irksome as Mirrors' general incoherence. [18 August 2008]

Thank You, Mr. President: Helen Thomas at the White House

As Thank You Mr. President shows, Helen Thomas has covered nine presidents and made it her business to question every one of them, often irreverently.

Bottle Shock

The international competition serves as backdrop for a cloying tale of underdogs inspired by rather sudden patriotic fervor. [15 August 2008]

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Maria Elena (Penélope Cruz) is the figure least obviously dictated by the Woody Allen template. And for that, you are eternally grateful.

The Order of Myths

It's the careful, unsensational revelation of self-delusion that makes The Order of Myths so devastating. [14 August 2008]

Tropic Thunder

Tropic Thunder tells you that race and masculinity and class identity issues make men in this business mean and juvenile. And then it tells you again. [13 August 2008]

POV: Belarusian Waltz

If Belarusian Waltz seems unsubtle, it also offers some surprises, most involving the women in Alexander Pushkin's life. [12 August 2008]

Wide Angle: China Prep

The high school seniors at the center of China Prep are almost painfully dutiful and selfless.

We Are Together: The Children of Agape Choir

Cutting repeatedly between the Moya home and the choir, We Are Together never quite lets viewers feel settled. [11 August 2008]

Man on Wire

In Man on Wire, Philippe Petit's life story is set in a much broader context, both historical and immediate, a time recollected from so many angles that the reconstruction begins to feel like another sort of stunt. [8 August 2008]

Patti Smith: Dream of Life

As much as Steven Sebring's documentary reveals of Patti Smith, it never tries to define her or even make her its only focus.

Larry Flynt: The Right to be Left Alone

Larry Flynt means to offend. He also means to gain attention, make money, and, in his way, tell truth. [7 August 2008]

Pineapple Express

Pineapple Express is mostly what you expect: bonding mechanics that are unsurprising and feebly unrebellious. [6 August 2008]

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 is so fixed on representing the range of the girls' experiences that they spend precious little time together.

POV: Johnny Cash: The Man, His World, His Music

With his life and career in one of their several turnarounds, Cash is here an ideal documentary subject, self-aware, passionate, and glad to take the crew along on a tour of places and people that matter to him, [5 August 2008]

Wide Angle: 18 With a Bullet

Again and again, 18 With a Bullet reinforces this idea, that the rules are all important.

Baghdad High

If Baghdad High's verité is not exactly hands-off, it is respectful of the kids' own concerns. [4 August 2008]

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

Amid all the poorly edited, atrociously written tumult, the silly CGI and the tragic misuse of Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh, Rick remains an appealing throwback hero. [1 August 2008]

Frozen River

Too often burdened by its own symbolism, Frozen River is buoyed by Melissa Leo's nuanced performance.

Swing Vote

Swing Vote's satire is consistently unsurprising, even if it's warranted.

No Regret (Huhwihaji anha)

Directed by the openly gay Leesong Hee-il, No Regret marks a series of firsts, all swirling around the concept of visibility. [31 July 2008]

American Teen

In American Teen, Hannah is charismatic, bright, and entertainingly acerbic concerning her classmates' struggles with the high school's "total caste system." [30 July 2008]

POV: Campaign (Senkyo)

Kazuhiro Soda's excellent Campaign (Senkyo) is an "observational documentary," quiet and acute. [29 July 2008]

Wide Angle: Lord’s Children

Startling and strangely poetic, Lord's Children focuses on three young victims' efforts to recover from their years with Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda.

The Recruiter

In The Recruiter, Staff Sergeant Clay Usie says he doesn't have a "pitch." Instead, he asserts, "I go out and look for patriots." [28 July 2008]

The X-Files: I Want to Believe

In The X-Files: I Want to Believe, ooky canted shots of trundling agents in "FBI"-emblazoned jackets seem like refreshing counterprogramming amid the rumble of the season's action movies. [25 July 2008]

Brideshead Revisited

The new Brideshead Revisited doesn't grapple much with Charles' disconcerting mix of nostalgia and odium regarding British aristocracy.

Step Brothers

In Step Brothers, Nancy (Mary Steenburgen) is the ideal audience, the girl who can't fathom the anti-nuances of masculine ritual.

Disfigured

Disfigured's focus on the friendship between Lydia (Deidra Edwards) and Darcy (Staci Lawrence) reveals they are not your average movie opposites who attract. [24 July 2008]

Boy A

Boy A, based on Jonathan Trigell’s novel, lays out an intricate map of how social expectations and limits shape individual horizons. [23 July 2008]

Wide Angle: The Burning Season

Airing as part of PBS' Wide Angle, The Burning Season examines the complex relationship among Indonesian farmers, global corporate entities, and earth's future. [22 July 2008]

POV: 9 Star Hotel

The possibility of panicky flight hangs over Ido Haar's affecting documentary, 9 Star Hotel.

Heidi Fleiss: The Would-Be Madam of Crystal

Heidi Fleiss: The Would-Be Madam of Crystal is not the documentary you might expect. [21 July 2008]

Mamma Mia!

Meryl Streep scampers and writhes with something like abandon in her tomboyish overalls, her glowing tan and perfectly arranged "wild" blond hair indicating Donna's stanch independence. [18 July 2008]

Transsiberian

Transsiberian makes provocative connections between external and internal states, the ways that composition can reveal character.

Space Chimps

Lacking forward motion, Space Chimps turns itself in circles.

The Dark Knight

Batman's dilemma in The Dark Knight is how to use his bad press, whether he will embrace it or continue to fight it. [17 July 2008]

The Cleaner: Series Premiere

The first episode of The Cleaner takes its self-appointed contextualizing very seriously. [15 July 2008]

POV: The Last Conquistador

Methodically and cleverly, The Last Conquistador follows the controversy surrounding El Paso's commmisioned statue of Don Juan de Oñate.

China’s Stolen Children

For his remarkable documentary, filmmaker Jezza Neumann spent three and half months posing as a tourist in order to obtain undercover footage of victims, traffickers, and buyers. [14 July 2008]

Generation Kill

The start of HBO's Generation Kill lays out some essential points of focus: the Kuwaiti desert is hot, the firepower is awesome, and the kids in U.S. uniforms are exactly that: kids. [11 July 2008]

Hellboy II: The Golden Army

As he loves Liz, life, and TV, Hellboy embodies possibility, faith, and imagination.

Blogs

Consuming Consumables: Iraq in Fragments [$29.99] [17 December 2007]

Consuming Consumables: Shut Up & Sing [$19.95] [2 December 2007]